


Surface-Healed Part 1

by rohanrider3



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, BAMF Hunk (Voltron), BAMF Keith (Voltron), BAMF Lance (Voltron), BAMF Pidge (Voltron), BAMF Shiro (Voltron), Black Lion (Voltron) - Freeform, Blue Lion (Voltron) - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gift Fic, Green Lion (Voltron) - Freeform, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Lance & Keith (Voltron) Friendship, Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt Friendship, Lance (Voltron)-centric, My OCs are talking to your OCs what is going on, Original Character(s), Protective Shiro (Voltron), Red Lion (Voltron) - Freeform, Rescue Missions, Sentient Voltron Lions, Snark, Team as Family, Yellow Lion (Voltron) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 11:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10385625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohanrider3/pseuds/rohanrider3
Summary: It's all fun and games until some jerk hijacks the bond between Lance and his Lion. Then it's not so great.Or,Don't mess with everyone's favorite smart alec, Lance is tougher than he looks, and his space family _will_ take it personally.(Comments are quintessence! ;) Let me know if you liked it!)





	1. Not Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rangergirl3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rangergirl3/gifts).



> Gift fic for Rangergirl3. She's awesome, and I couldn't resist playing in her sandbox AU of the Voltron: Legendary Defenders. Rayzor, Aurelis, and Beyris show up in this as well...along with a few other characters who just showed up at my mental doorstep.

Lance gradually came awake, the sounds around him garbling and merging unhelpfully together. He couldn’t—he didn’t—  
—what was happening—  
Where was—  
He tried opening his eyes. It was hard. Harder than it should have been.  
Vague shapes blurred in and out of focus just out of his range of sight. He squinted, croaked out a weak question. His voice sounded strange. Cracked. Rough. Almost gone. Why did it—  
“—’s goin on—“ he asked.  
Laughter, uncomfortably close by. Not nice laughter, either. Not anyone he knew.  
Lance blinked faster, tried to look around. Realized his arms were stretched out above his head and his wrists tightly secured with some sort of glowy—purple—bands? Dimly, very dimly, he knew this was a very bad thing, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why.  
He chanced a quick, painful look down, saw similar restraints around his middle, around both ankles—  
—quizknak, why did everything hurt so much—  
Sudden terror shot through him.  
Purple. Glowing. Bands.  
Oh no.  
—the Galra, the Galra had him—  
—how did they—  
In a flash, Lance remembered. They’d been helping evacuate refugees. From a dying forestry camp. There’d been some sort of trouble with the planet’s tides. They’d been getting stronger and higher, making the whole planet all but uninhabitable. Not that the Galra had cared. True to form, they’d drained the planet dry of resources and then warped off, leaving the desperate inhabitants to slowly drown in muddy silt and remorseless undertows.  
But then the Castle of Lions had shown up.  
He and his friends had gotten everybody, and finished escorting almost all the refugee shuttles into the Castle of Lions—they had, they’d, they’d almost, almost finished—  
And then the Galra had—had come back—  
—and—he’d drawn them away, away from the last few—last few refugee shuttles leaving the main city and the palace—but there’d been too many, too many Galra, they’d shot him out of the sky—the last thing he remembered was crashing down onto the dying planet’s surface—  
—they’d shot him and—and—  
“ _Blue_!” Lance croaked. He tried to get free. The restraints buzzed. Sharp, stabbing pain flared down his wrists, up his legs, across his chest. Someone near him snickered. Lance choked. Well, that explained why his voice was so bad. That and his memory loss.  
But that wasn’t the worst part.  
The worst part was that Blue’s voice, her very presence, was just…gone.  
Lance couldn’t believe it, searched for her in his mind, even stopped fighting to get free. Just for a second, thinking that maybe, just maybe, the electricity shooting through him had something to do with the faulty connection, maybe if it stopped hurting for just a second, he could—  
—he could—  
_Blue? Blue? BLUE?!!_  
Nothing. Still no answer. Not even a murmur. No thin response, no kind purr, no snarky banter about how she was right here and he didn’t have to be yelling so loudly.  
Nothing.  
Just an…empty void. Where his Lion used to be.  
_BLUE!!! WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU OKAY? BLUE, GIRL, COMEON, ANSWER ME!!_  
Nothing.  
_Blue_ was _gone_.  
Lance felt his heart drop, realized he was simultaneously shivering and sweating. Beads of sweat dripped down his neck and slid down the collar of the plain black Altean uniform he always wore underneath his paladin’s armor.  
So his armor was gone. And he didn’t remember that part.  
Made sense. Getting your brain fried would play hell with your short term memory, he supposed. Still, though. He did not like it.  
Lance gritted his teeth, tried changing his methods of escape. He had to find his Lion, dammit, he had to find her, help her, help them escape. He focused his pulling efforts first on one cuff, then the other. Tried freezing them too. No good. The buzzing simply intensified. Became one long, drawn-out snarl of electricity and pain.  
Lance cried out, then felt his throat close up as his entire body shuddered, stiffened. He shook all over. Pain pounded through his head, thrummed through his muscles. He lost track of what happened for a moment.  
But not for long enough.  
The unfamiliar voice laughed again.  
After what felt like ages, but must have only been a few minutes, the snarl from the cuffs died down to the dull thrum again. And a dark figure swam into focus in front of his eyes.  
A taloned finger, lifting up his chin. Yellow eyes, staring into his own.  
Lance instinctively tried to jerk his face back and away—because seriously, a) nobody needed to be touchin his face, and b) the guy was a freaking spider-dude dressed in a rather battered-looking Galra uniform. If spiders were humanoid and had four legs instead of, you know, two. And if they had four arms, two of which had, instead of, normal human hands, they had, um, you know, prehensile, prehensile claws—  
—because, because, because of course there were spiders in space, and of course one of them had become a freaking Galra commander—  
—oh, god, oh, god—  
—can’t get away, the guy won’t let him—  
Lance closed his eyes tight shut instead, pressed his lips together, searched for Blue inside his mind. C _omeon, comeon, comeon, he pleaded, talk to me girl, please, please, please, talk to me—this is so not awesome, and it’s not even a MONDAY—where are you, are you okay, BLUE WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU—_  
There!  
A voice, inside his mind.  
Lance reached for it desperately, instinctively.  
_Blue? Blue! Blue, I—I was so scared—I thought, I thought that—_  
_**You thought what?**_  
Lance jerked away from that voice.  
Because that voice wasn’t Blue.  
It was as far away from Blue as dark was from light, or warmth from cold.  
It was—it was—  
His eyes shot open. Stared straight into the smiling eyes of the Galra commander. Who smiled back at him.  
It was not a nice smile.  
The definately-not-Blue voice spoke in his head again.  
**_There have been a few changes while you were…out. First, I’m Commander Larochen. Second, I’m the new paladin of the Blue Lion. Your “bond” with it was not as strong as you thought._**  
Larochen’s talons forced Lance’s chin up a few inches more, just enough so it got much harder to breathe very quickly.  
_**So. Former Blue Paladin. I’d appreciate it if you told me where my lion is. And after that, you can tell me where the rest of the Paladins hide when you are not “defending the universe”. Cute little phrase, by the way.**_  
Lance stared unbelievingly at him. His next words were little better than a whisper. “You’re…kidding…me.”  
Larochen’s smile thinned even further.  
_**I assure you. I am not.**_  
Larochen cocked his head to one side, smiling crookedly.  
_**How else could I do THIS?**_  
Lance screamed as sudden pieces of fragmented images tore painfully through his mind. Images of him, and Blue, and the team, and the castle, and—and their allies, Rayzor, and Aurelis, and B—  
_**So many faces.**_ Larochen mused. **_—Perhaps I should study them all—_**  
**“NO!!!”** Lance roared, and ripped his mind away from those thoughts, thoughts about home, and Blue, and friends, and family, and safety—things he wanted to be thinking about more than anything else—  
—because—  
—because this Larochen guy was in his mind, in his freaking mind. Riffling through Lance’s thoughts and feelings and memories like he was flipping through an old index card catalog. Only Blue had ever been able to communicate with him, like that, before, and she’d asked to do it, and he’d let her, and now it was Larochen, instead, euwyuck, gross, not cool—  
—and the worst part was—  
—the worst part—  
—was—  
Lance couldn’t—he couldn’t—  
He couldn’t hear Blue.  
—why couldn’t he hear Blue—  
—where was she—  
_**Where is she, and where are they?**_ Larochen interrupted, sounding testy. _**Tell me what I want to know, and the pain will end.**_  
A thought occurred to Lance, faint and fleeting, but cutting across his fear and confusion just as sharp and as clear as a thin draft of winter air sliding underneath an opened door.  
Something about this situation didn’t make sense.  
Because—because if this guy could read his mind, like, actually could read his mind, and had hijacked the bond with Blue, somehow, why hadn’t he just, like—  
—like, already found Blue?  
—and yanked the necessary coordinates out of Lance’s mind and happily sent Haggar to Prosleyt? Or to Earth? If he’d been smart, this Larochen guy woulda done it already—and you didn’t get to be a Galra commander if you weren’t smart—so why hadn’t he just done it alrea—  
Larochen snarled at Lance’s silence and the whine in the cuffs intensified. Lance gritted his teeth and tried to finish his line of thought, hold it together. But it cracked and crumbled away. His cargo-pilot brain seemed to just, fail, sort of, kinda stop working. It was as if something had started to erode, to slowly fall apart deep inside him. Which was weird, given that pretty much each muscle in his body had also decided, at that very moment, to simultaneously contract.  
When Larochen finally stopped barbecuing his brain, Lance didn’t have the breath to speak. So he just shook his head instead.  
_G—get out of my h—head—and I’m—I’m—n—n—not gonna tell y-y-y-you—_  
Larochen laughed. Inside his mind.  
_**Oh. I think you will.**_  
Lance gritted his teeth, forced himself to shake his head once more from side to side.  
“N—no.” he said, out loud, and again, more forcefully, “N—n—no. I w—w—won’t.”  
Larochen’s smile was cruel and cold, almost worse than the electrical cuffs. The commander cocked his head again, his mental presence bearing down, the pressure all but physically crushing Lance.  
_**You keep saying that. And then I keep hurting you.**_  
Lance hated talking to this guy in his head. That was Blue’s spot. Nobody else’s. He wanted to snap back a witty retort, but his voice wouldn’t work. His tongue was dry and swollen, and his throat ached. He thought he might have hurt himself with all his non-remembered yelling—how long had he been here, anyway—  
—and Larochen was right in his face again—tryin to look into Lance’s eyes, or somethin—  
—whoa whoa whoa, hey, not cool, personal space bubble violation, man—  
Lance didn’t like Larochen’s eyes so close to his own, so he grimaced and tried to get away. Again. But there’s really not a lot of places to go if you’re strapped to an upright table like a lanky bug awaiting dissection.  
—oh, God, he wanted to talk to Blue—  
—he wanted to talk to Shiro, to Keith, to Hunk, to Pidge, to anybody, anybody in the quiznaking universe except this guy—  
_**A useless wish.**_  
Lance froze.  
Oh, quiznak. He—he had to be careful what he—what he wished for. What he, what he thought. Because Larochen could see his thoughts.  
Or maybe, sense them?  
Or guess them?  
How deep did this mind meld with the Galra dude go?  
Lance wasn’t sure. Couldn’t be sure. Had to be careful.  
But then he felt that thin little draft of air again, cutting through all the pain and confusion and fear clouding and twisting his mind. Again it asked, if Larochen could actually read Lance’s thoughts…why was he even bothering with all of this?  
Lance swallowed hard as the realization hit him.  
Because Larochen was lying.  
He might have some kind of mental whammy thing, sure. He’d definately done something to the bond Lance had with Blue. He was certainly good at messing with Lance’s head. But that didn’t mean he could actually read Lance’s mind.  
So maybe Lance could—maybe he could think of a way to—  
—OW—okay, apparently Larochen didn’t like it when Lance thought about things for very long—owowowowowow—  
Larochen let up on the electricity, moved back a little. Shrugged and yawned. Yawned. Looked up over Lance’s head, at what Lance could only assume was a clock or a ticker of some kind.  
_**Do you know how long it’s been? How long I’ve had you? How long they haven’t come for you?**_  
Lance swallowed hard at this blatant attempt at misdirection and discouragement. Which was absolutely working on him.  
He decided to shrug back while fighting down the urge to cry, or throw up. Or to maybe do both. Simultaneously.  
Don’t think about how much you miss your friends, don’t think about how much you want to talk to Blue, don’thinkaboutit, don’tthinkaboutit don’tthinkaboutit—  
Larochen’s two yellow eyes—hey, at least he only had two—gleamed as he grinned again. Then he brought up what looked like some sort of remote. Slowly pressed one thick talon down on one of the controls. Oh, that’s what he’d been using.  
The snarling whine of electricity building. Pressure, building inside the restraints.  
Larochen, calmly, in his mind, speaking over the rising sound.  
_**You will give in. It is only a matter of time.**_  
Lance swallowed, hard. Then glared hard over at the Commander. Decided to say the next words out loud. Just to show he wasn’t going to play this jerkface’s game.  
“…well, that time isn’t…now.” he rasped.  
Quiznak, his throat hurt. Larochen frowned. Pressed the button down fully. The whine increased. Lance closed his eyes.  
And then the pain started again.  
Larochen let it go for a little longer this time.  
After he stopped spasming, Lance slumped and wheezed for awhile. Caught his breath. Blearily caught Larochen’s eye.  
“Or….now.” he managed.  
Larochen’s face turned ugly. He mashed the button down hard, angrily waited.  
Lance hadn’t thought he’d be able to hurt any more. He’d been wrong.  
When Larochen finally let up, Lance gagged, fought for breath, then coughed, the sound deep and rough in his chest. Turned his head, spat red gobbets out onto the floor.  
“Or…now.” he said, weakly, and felt the ghost of a smile appear on his face.  
If she could hear him now, Blue would be so proud.  
“And…and as long…as it, as it isn’t…now…you…you won’t….get them. No matter…no matter whatcha…whatcha do.”  
Lance tried to put his old cocky attitude back into his voice. Even for just a little bit.  
“So…so…soooo….screw you….space Shelob.”  
Larochen snarled then, showing all his teeth in one impressive display of vindictive aggressiveness.  
_**You really love to talk, don’t you.**_  
Somehow, somewhere, Lance found the energy to wink over at his captor. Well, honestly. It wasn’t like things could get any worse. “Just one of my many talents, Arachne.”  
Larochen’s teeth flashed again in a feral snarl. _**You impudent little earthwor—**_  
Lance never found out exactly what Larochen thought he was, because just then something—not the cuffs, thankfully—buzzed. Larochen pulled out what must have been the evil Galra equivalent of a smartphone and studied it.  
_**Well well well. We’re being hailed by an ancient Altean castle. Whose princess is demanding to immediately speak with the Blue Paladin.**_  
Larochen considered it for a moment, then turned his attention back to Lance with a nasty smile on his face. Spoke into the shadows where glowing purple drones waited, silently at attention.  
_**Tell her I’ll take the call only if she and the other Paladins are there. And that ridiculous Altean advisor of hers. Or it’s a no go. If she agrees—and she will—set up the screen and be ready to broadcast in ten dervents.**_  
One of the drones bowed and lurched off. Lance couldn’t see it very well from where he was, but the thought crossed his mind that it seemed in pretty bad shape to be on a Galra ship.  
Lance did not like the way Larochen was grinning at him again, or the way he motioned to something off in the shadows that Lance couldn’t see. He wasn’t sure what the commander had planned, but he would place heavy bets on the odds that he was going to hate it.  
_**Hear that? She actually wants to talk to you. But before we do that—**_  
Larochen laughed, low and long. Reached out, took something from out of Lance’s line of vision. Held it up, straps and buckles dangling and glinting in the purple light from the cuffs.  
_**Remember these? I borrowed some from the Druids. Made some minor adjustments of my own.**_  
Larochen laughed again. Came closer. Reached out.  
_**Be sure and tell me what you think.**_  
Oh, God.  
Lance hated it when he was right.


	2. Oh We’re Not Gonna Take It

“—just don’t understand.” the queen of the Trelvins said, fretfully twisting all six of her vine-like hands together in anguished worry. “—my divers recovered the Blue Lion yesterday, we did, but when they brought her up to the surface, your pilot was gone and she was unresponsive. Your Black Lion brought her on board the castle after the Galra were defeated, and my engineers have done everything they can to get her systems working again…and they’ve cleared out any possible material from our planet causing the damage…but so far, nothing. She will not respond. They do not know what is wrong either, my friend.”  
The Queen’s thin voice cracked a little on her next words. “And Paladin Lance was so kind to my little Grevin…”  
Crown Prince Grevin peeked around his mother’s knee, big brown eyes shining, little mouth trembling. Aurelis fought back the urge to throw back his own head, scream, and smash his medical tablet into little pieces against the nearby infirmary wall while screaming profanities. As much of a release as it would be…it wouldn’t help anything.  
Plus, he didn’t know that many profanities.  
And Trevlin children were so impressionable at only two hundred years old. Barely walking or talking. And stars knew he didn’t want this one learning anything too colorful yet.  
“I know it’s hard, Riana,” he said, doing his best to at least seem calm, “but do you have any idea, even just a guess, at what could have happened to Lan—to the Blue Paladin?”  
Riana blinked furiously, her leafy hair rustling as she shook her head in distress. “I’ve thought and thought and thought,” she said tiredly, “but I cannot think what could do such a thing. To be able to tear off the top panel in such a way—to take a paladin of Voltron from his lion, and not be instantly destroyed—of course, the crash might have had something to do with it, since the Lion was entirely submerged in that contaminated swamp—but, but every living life form on the planet was on those shuttles—I just don’t—“  
Aurelius resisted the urge to groan and to drop his head in his hands. Riana was a good queen and a wonderful friend, but she had the unfortunate tendency to ramble when she was distressed. Like now, his mind supplied sourly. It was almost as if her entire planet had been stripped of all its resources and then her people left to die. Whoever would be distressed by that? His brain snarked.  
Aurelis sighed. This was getting them nowhere.  
Riana hadn’t stopped rambling yet. “…I checked the scanners myself, too, nothing showed up, not even on the deep water scanners, so that isn’t an option ei—“  
Crown Prince Grevin mumbled something into the back of his mother’s knee. Aurelis stopped trying to pull his own hair out by the roots and looked over at the child, blinking.  
“Eh? What’s that?”  
“Mfthphrmph.” Grevin said again, unhelpfully.  
Riana bent down and picked him up with a little oof of effort. “No, darling, it wouldn’t be that.” she said distractedly. Grevin plastered himself against her and curled his own small six arms around her, burying his face into her neck.  
“Wouldn’t be what?” Aurelis wanted to know.  
Riana waved one free leafy arm in a hopeless gesture. “Larochens. Nightmare monsters. They’re not real.” She hesitated, then held one hand over her son’s ears and whispered, “That is, not anymore. We eradicated the last of them years ago.” She stopped herself and elaborated a little, seeing Aurelis’ raised eyebrow. “Well, I should say the Galra did.” Her expressive face darkened. “The only good thing they ever did for our planet. And they only took notice after a particularly vicious pack drained the life out of an entire garrison of Galra fighters. Their commander landed their troop ship in the wrong swamp, and…well…” She shrugged a little. “Larochens are natural predators. Life-takers. Quintessence-drinkers.”  
Grevin popped his head up from his mother’s shoulder. “Mind-talkers.” He put his head down again.  
Aurelis frowned to himself, tapping his stylus against his teeth. “Would they show up on the scans?”  
Riana blinked wide green eyes at him, realization dawning in them. “Not…not the ones I used.” she said slowly. “But, perhaps…if there were any left—they did live in the swamps—they’d hollow out caves and drag their prey there to…“  
Her nutbrown face turned pale. “You, you don’t think…”  
Aurelis swallowed hard.  
“I’m afraid…”  
His voice trailed off. He coughed in a business-like manner and forced himself to think extremely analytically about the situation at hand.  
“Where are those scanners?”  
Riana turned, Grevin still clinging to her, very small and very vulnerable. Now that she had something concrete to do, her voice changed, became tougher, stronger. Much more like the classmate he’d had back during their university days.  
“This way! Hurry—we can change them to scan for the Larochen’s energy signature instead of Lance’s—that should let us at least send a signal there, even if we can’t pinpoint the location just yet—quiznaking electrical storms down on the surface—“  
  
***  
  
Eleven dervents and one urgent summons to the castle’s throne room later, Keith stared up at the screen and fought back the urge to light something on fire. More specifically, someone. Or something. Spider-monsters dressed in dead Galra commander uniforms were weird that way. And, somewhere deep inside his brain, Keith knew he was just trying to find a way to deal with the all encompassing rage that was threatening to literally set him on fire.  
Intellectually, Keith knew he couldn’t reach through the screen. He knew he couldn’t just teleport to Lance’s location and rip him away from the sadistic nutjob who had him. Not with Lance hooked up to…  
…all…that.  
No matter how badly Keith wanted to try.  
Dammit, clever villains were the worst.  
Snatch and grab rescues were a lot harder if you couldn’t just…well…snatch and grab. Because if the teammate you wanted to rescue was hooked up to what amounted to an alien ventilating machine…it made rescue harder. A lot harder.  
Because people needed to breathe.  
They needed to breathe a lot.  
Lance liked talking. And breathing. As did most people.  
Dammit, Lance.  
Keith didn’t want to risk ripping out his teammate’s lungs—or the mask or the machine now attached to him and acting as his lungs—just because he hadn’t thought ahead. But that’s why he had teammates. That’s why they had family. Maybe they could come up with a plan.  
He really, really hoped they would.  
He chanced a quick glance over at the rest of his friends. Allura was stretching out the call as much as she dared with her diplomatic skills. She was playing for time, buying them valuable data-gathering seconds.  
Coran was playing the part of courtier perfectly, advising, musing, advocating, and generally doing a terrifyingly good job of showing how furious he was by not showing any emotion at all.  
Shiro was studying the situation on the viewscreen very calmly and very rationally, betraying nothing by the expression on his face.  
And was clenching his Galra hand so tightly at his side that literal sparks were grinding out from between his fingers.  
Keith couldn’t blame him. Just seeing Lance on a freaking Galra torture table—and barely breathing through all those alien machines—and then getting friggin electrocuted—forced him to use all his available energy to not to set everything in the room on fire. Keith focused on his breathing technique and tried to calm himself with the knowledge that once Hunk and Pidge, sitting mute and fulminating on either side of him, finished their silent, enraged assessment of what the hell that sonofabitch had done to their friend—and, more importantly, how they could fix it—  
THEN HE COULD WARP IN AND SET EVERYTHING ON FIRE.  
Except Lance.  
Of course he wouldn’t set Lance on fire. Or set fire to anything keeping Lance alive.  
But everything else was fair game.  
So, intel first.  
Keith ground his teeth as the schumuck who clearly thought it was okay—funny, even—to hurt people—kept talking away. Keith curled his hands into fists, realized his fingernails had lengthened, realized he didn’t really give a damn.  
Okay. Okay. Okay.  
Try to get what you can out of the call. Maybe you’ll pick up on something that can help the others. Can help Lance.  
Um.  
So, the Galra mask over Lance’s face is glowing. That was…new. Why the hell was that damn Galra mask glowing, anyway? It had no right to be glowing. Sickly green or any other color. And it shouldn’t be on his teammate’s face, dammit.  
Okay, Keith, okay, Keith. Focus on intel, not righteous anger. You can murder things later. Focus, Keith.  
Maybe Lance will try to signal something. Maybe he knows why Blue isn’t waking up. Maybe he can help us find him, pinpoint where he is so we can come and get him.  
Maybe—

***  
Larochen had not liked it when Lance had bit his fingers.  
To be perfectly honest, Lance hadn’t really enjoyed it either. (Aside from the shocked look Larochen had given him when Lance had drawn blood.) Seriously, though. Larochen’s blood tasted terrible, like rancid lemons and gritty mud. And it wasn’t like Lance could spit it out now, either. Not now that he was on this stupidawfulfutzing alien ventilator thing, with the damn mask strapped so hard over his face he was getting a futzing headache.  
He hadn’t needed a ventilator.  
He’d told Larochen as much. At full volume. Not that it had mattered. Larochen had just sniggered, muttering something about “that’s all you know”, which had worried Lance, a little, but then Larochen had gotten just close enough so Lance could bite him, hard—  
—which had been the best part of Lance’s day so far—  
—but then Larochen had forced the mask on him. Which had not been the best part of Lance’s day. Not by a long shot. He’d felt stupid and weak and angry and furious at himself, because it was a hell of a lot harder to rescue your teammates if you had to unentangle them from medical equipment. Lance knew that—and he’d tried, he really had, to keep from being any harder to rescue than he already was—  
—but Larochen had managed to get the mask on him anyway. And now it was gettin harder and harder to breathe right, and he didn’t even really know what he was breathing, really, because for all he knew he was inhaling insanity-inducing drugs, so hey, yeah, things were pretty futzing terrible right now.  
And he felt like such a loser for even being here in the first place.  
Granted, it’d taken two more bites, three backhand slaps, and another round of electrocution for Larochen to get the damn thing fully on. But then it was on, and Lance couldn’t tell Larochen what he thought of him anymore. Or say anything.  
And then Larochen had electrocuted him again, yelling about the biting thing. Just as Allura’s face had appeared on the screen. She’d blinked, hard, her face twisting slightly, then icily requested Larochen to turn around and pay attention.  
Larochen had taken his own sweet time.  
And hadn’t stopped petulantly mashing the remote button behind his back for a good two minutes even after that.  
But he must have gotten really impassioned with his speech or something, or his grip must have slipped, because the stabbing pains shooting through Lance flickered off enough for Lance to be able to see. Sort of. Very blearily. And to eventually drift back to the present in time to see Larochen as he prated to a big viewscreen facing them. It had some familiar looking people on it. Lance squinted. The people’s faces came into focus.  
Worried, pale, angry faces.  
Aw, nuts.  
He hated being used as a pawn. Or as an example of failure. He really, really did. Also, this couldn’t be fun for Shiro, seeing Galra tech used again like this. Lance had a fuzzy feeling that Larochen wasn’t quite what he seemed to be—the Galra commander’s uniform had a huge bloodstained hole in the back, for one thing, and Larochen was perfectly fine—  
—dammit—  
—but if this little torture table chamber and ventilator crap wasn’t a trip down PTSD lane for poor Shiro, Lance didn’t know squat.  
But Shiro seemed to be handling it pretty well, actually. He wasn’t spacing out. He wasn’t hyperventilating, the way he had when Sendak and the corrupted castle had gone after his mind. He just looked…pissed. Why would he be pissed?  
Oh, yeah. Lance remembered. I’m the one strapped to the table. And breathing through tubes.  
Larochen looked back, smiled at him. Mashed the button again, very quickly, as if to make a point. Pain again. Lance jumped and jerked in a very undignified manner. Larochen smirked, then turned round and kept talking. When he was able to raise his head a little, Lance glowered at his back. Then squinted back up at the viewscreen, trying to gauge the current situation.  
He couldn’t see his teammates very clearly. Or hear all that well. He felt something wet trickling down from one ear. Which had hurt like a sonofabitch, just a few tics ago, during that last spurt of pain. But now it was fine.  
Annnnnd deaf.  
So. Probably a busted eardrum.  
Oh. And he still couldn’t breathe very deeply.  
Ugh. Today was definately a Monday.  
Lance kept up his rambling, constantly running interior monologue as a way to keep up with what was happening. And also, to keep himself from going insane. Because he sure as hell wasn’t able to do anything else at the moment.  
Oh, great. Another viewscreen opening up. Refugees looking up at it. Another viewscreen. And another. And another. Larochen was expanding the call. Throughout the entire Castle of Lions.  
Greeeeeeaaaat. Now all the frightened, terrified refugees currently huddled in the halls and lounges could be even more traumatized by a display of malevolent power. It’d tell them, in whispers more insiduous and stronger than a snake, _You’re not safe there. Look what I did to one of the so-called great Paladins. See? This’ll be what I do to you_. Or some other creepy shit like that. Oh, and now Larochen was going into the “—is what happens to my enemies and will happen to you unless—“ schpeal. Apparently he was the last surviving…something? Of a something? Oh, whatever. Point was, this guy was trying to get something he wanted by intimidating and terrifying people. Already petrified refugees, to be fully accurate.  
Dick move, Larochen. Dick move.  
Lance scrunched up his forehead and suddenly decided he’d had enough of being a punching bag for this guy’s displaced and impotent fury. Lance wasn’t stupid, not really. He knew couldn’t do much in this situation. He couldn’t fight back. Not in any way that really physically mattered. He couldn’t even talk.  
But he could—he had to—do something.  
Besides. Through all the bluster and the vitriol, Lance thought he might have figured out part of Larochen’s plan.  
There had to be a reason he’d targeted Voltron, anyway.  
An evil spider-guy who Lance would bet his bayard lived off of quintessence? And who just happened to be bargaining for one of the greatest quintessence sources in the universe?  
Coincidence?  
Lance thought not.  
Oh, God…quintessence…what if Larochen already drained Blue while I was ou—  
NO. DON’T THINK LIKE THAT.  
Lance forced himself to breathe—as well as he could control that at all, now—deeply, in, out, once, twice, and focused. He concentrated all his fear, all his panic, and all his anger—at being stuck, at being useless, at not being able to talk to Blue, to his team, to _anyone_ —towards his throbbing left wrist.  
Larochen continued his evil overlord shtick in front of him, strutting around the broken down bridge with his stolen, half-functional drones lining the rails like a glitching zombie honor guard. He reminded Lance of the the arrogant peacock prince from those kung fu movies his younger sister loved so much. Mariena had watched and rewatched them when she had that real bad strep throat that one time. Mariena had always had a thing for pandas. Hey, come to think of it, so did Pidge.  
Lance would have loooooooved to make a sly reference and an eyebrow-bouncing aside to his friends on the screen about how pride goeth before getting blown up with your own ammunition, but couldn’t seem to keep the train of thought together long enough for the words to make it out of his mouth. Also. He had those ventilator tubes shoved down his throat and screwing up his vocal cords.  
Damn Galra ventilator tube things.  
Larochen glanced back at him, lifted the remote. Lance felt his own shoulders tense. Larochen grinned at that, but let the remote fall back to his side. Without mashing the button, this time. The screen was still blurry, but Lance thought he saw what looked like a purple glow briefly flare up from Shiro’s side. Then be just as swiftly quelled. The handrests on Keith’s chair were smoking. Allura wouldn’t like that. She’d just gotten them fixed.  
Lance realized he’d lost focus. And was slumping in relief at not getting shocked again. He promptly hated himself for that moment of weakness, clenched his fists, glared harder at his captor’s back. Larochen noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye and turned around again, just halfway, lazily waving the remote where Lance and the others could see it. Lance closed his eyes for a second, swallowed, hard, realized he was breathing faster, less controlled. Forced himself to think, to concentrate, he was not going to show his team and an entire planet’s inhabitants how futzing terrified he was and how much he futzing hurt. They already knew all that.  
He wasn’t gonna help make them even more scared.  
And the only way Lance knew how to help scared people was the way he helped himself.  
Laughing.  
And failing that…  
Smartassery.  
So he concentrated, again, hard, on his left wrist. Specifically, the veins running through his wrist. He knew from previous painful tries that he wasn’t able to make anything more than a faint little frost right now…but if he did this right…  
—come on, come on, come on—  
He cast his eyes upward toward his hand to see if it was working. Tiny sparks of blue-white frost, glittering into being on his hand—hahaha, yup yup yup, come on, come on, come on, come on—  
Well, Larochen’s finishing up his list of demands. Each Lion of Voltron with their paladin, free passage off the planet for himself, blahdeblahdeblah. Lance wearily wondered if the guy had asked for a pony, along with the other impossible things. He was clearly nutso. But that didn’t seem to stop him from monologing.  
And here’s the part where he said, in true movie villain style,  
_**—or what you’ll get back will be a broken, useless husk.**_  
Blah, blah, blah.  
Then Larochen turned around. Just in time to see what Lance had been doing. Lance grinned at him—a useless gesture through the mask, but what the hell, his eyes must be showing glee too, he’d never had a good poker face—and extended a finger of his left hand as much as he could out at Larochen, narrowing his eyes in very real anger.  
Was it the most mature insult or rebuttal he’d ever given? Far from it. But right now, it was the only one he had.  
Lance’s middle finger—and only the middle finger—glittered with frost, glinting in the darkness of the broken, dead Galra ship.  
Coran looked puzzled, Allura scared. Keith’s eyes widened. Pidge gasped. Hunk moaned. Shiro went pale and closed his eyes for half a second. But it was enough.  
Lance certainly had everyone’s attention.  
Larochen stared blankly for a moment, then chanced a glance over his shoulder at the viewscreen. Their reactions confirmed his suspicions. His yellow eyes blazed with rage and he snarled, tossed the remote aside, and leapt for Lance, his two burning eyes fixed firmly on him. He was at Lance’s side very quickly, talons reaching out, long and curved and sharp.

Larochen was right by him, now. Grabbing Lance by the neck and smacking the back of his head so hard against the metal behind him that Lance saw stars. Snarling right in Lance’s face about being worthless and stupid.  
Then he grabbed Lance’s left hand.  
Slowly, deliberately, smiling at him the whole time, Larochen pushed it backwards.  
And broke it at the wrist.  
Lance had known that would probably happen. He had. He had. He had.  
But it hurt all the same.  
But it was worth it.  
Especially since now the team—and only the team—could now see the Morse code he was tapping out.  
With his other hand.


	3. No, We Ain't Gonna Take It

 

Hunk clenched his jaw and fought back the urge to throw up as the sound of Lance’s wrist cracking echoed throughout the ship.  
He didn’t want to see this. He didn’t want to see any of this. He didn’t want to see his teammate hurting like this, he didn’t want to see how scared Lance was, he didn’t want to see him at his most terrified and most vulnerable, he knew Lance hated those moments, he knew how hard Lance tried to put on a brave face for everyone, and now this jerkface was futzing broadcasting this, this, all over the futzing ship. He didn’t want to see this jerk laughing at Lance, as if brave, funny, loyal, kind Lance was some sort of stupid schmuck who couldn’t—  
—Morse code?  
—Lance was—  
—with his unbroken hand, Lance was tapping out—  
Hunk jerked in surprise, knocking over a forgotten glass of water in front of him.  
“Sorry!” He blurted out. Pidge jerked her tablet away from him. He reached out as if to grab for the spilled cup, but instead started spelling out the message Lance was sending over the smooth, cool surface of the table. Pidge saw what he was doing and blinked.  
Then she pushed her tablet in front of her again and splayed her hands out behind it too, very, very subtly keeping track on her side as well.  
—T—R—A—P—  
Come on, buddy, Hunk silently prayed, give me more than that—we know it’s a trap, clearly it is—  
B—L—U—  
Okay, okay, but  
—S—I—L—E—N—T—  
Wait, what—  
Q—T—S—E—  
What—oh, quintessence! Lance was abbreviating—smart job, Lance, that’s my boy, Lance—  
D—R—A—I—N—E—R—  
Hunk felt his own color drain away.  
U—N—O—T—C—O—M—E—D—A—N—G—E—R—  
Keith shifted slightly and drummed his own fingers erratically, restlessly on the table in front of him, drawing attention to his movements alone.  
“This is stupid.” he muttered, but Hunk knew their typically silent teammate was doing it to be heard. “Why are we still sitting here?”  
He snarled at the screen. “HEY, ASSHOLE! WHY DON’T YOU PICK ON SOMEONE YOU HAVEN’T TIED DOWN?!” He yelled. Hunk was so proud of Keith for not setting fire to the table with all this involved and frustrating finger tapping. Good job Keith.  
“Keith, stand down.” That was Shiro, joining in on the cover. He kept his Galra hand hidden from the screen, but the twitching index finger spelled out g—o—o—d so quickly Hunk almost didn’t catch it—  
Katie spelled out a reply to Lance. Hunk spelled it out too, hoping he could see it.  
—Y—E—S—W—E—C—O—M—E—  
Lance’s fingers, already shaking, shook worse.  
—N—O—  
A sudden laugh from the other side of the screen. Lance’s fingers froze. Yellow glowing eyes turned to them.  
_**Are you done yet?**_ Larochen’s voice asked.  
Hunk felt his stomach flip. That laugh again. If it could be called a laugh. Hunk had heard rusty nails on old chalkboards that had been more soothing.  
_**How stupid do you think I am?**_ the Larochen asked them, burning yellow eyes studying each of them in turn. It turned its attention back to Lance.  
_**No, no, don’t answer. I don’t need you to.**_  
It reached out for Lance’s right hand. As he did, for the briefest second, the alien who’d kidnapped his friend moved so that Hunk was able to lock gazes with Lance.  
Hunk wanted to turn away and throw up. He really did. He felt awful. Maybe if he hadn’t knocked over the water, maybe if he hadn’t signed back—but he didn’t turn away. Lance deserved better than that.  
Lance just met his eyes, looking back at him over the mask. And he looked…Hunk didn’t know the right word. Exhausted, definitely. Scared, too. But not angry. Or hurt. Or betrayed.  
He just looked like he…missed them all. A lot.  
Even though they were right in front of him.  
Somehow that was worse.  
Lance blinked hard, started to tap out letters again.  
—S—O—R—Y—  
That was as far as he got before Larochen grabbed his right hand.  
And broke each finger. Individually.  
Hunk did jerk away then, spinning his chair off to the side. And then he totally threw up. All over Coran’s chair. As the snapping sounds came through the comms.  
He couldn’t help it.  
Not anymore.

  
****  
Intellectually, Lance knew no one could hear him. And that screaming was probably a bad idea at the moment. But that knowledge didn’t stop his throat muscles from trying to work as Larochen finished breaking his thumb with a vicious snap. The the freaky spider thing moved on to the next finger. He couldn’t see his friends anymore, Larochen’s shoulder was blocking his view, but Lance could hear Hunk throwing up over the speakers, and hear Keith and Pidge swearing like sailors. Allura was silent, Shiro too, Coran hissing something in Altean—  
Lance’s thoughts stuttered, part of his brain grimly observing what was going on. The rest of his mind sort of ran around inside his head, screaming in panic and driving various and barely-connected trains of thought that rammed into each other and fell off their tracks. Violent thoughts and feelings flicked through his mind in random bursts and stumbling bits.  
And that was just in his head.  
—snap, there went his trigger finger—  
—shit—now he really was useless—  
—owowow, he’s moving on to the middle finger now—  
—Shiro, Allura, helpme, helpmeplease, KeithHunkKatiePidge, please, pleaseithurts, CoranRayzorAurelis whereareyou—  
—crack, middle finger—so much for using that one—  
—owguys, don’t just stand there, do something, please—  
—fourth—  
—PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE HIM STOP—  
—Larochen’s laughing, now, going for the pinky—seriously, the pinky? what had Lance’s pinky finger ever done to—DAMMIT—  
—AAAAAGGGGH—GUYS, HELP ME, COME GET ME, PLE—  
—but it’s not fair to ask them to do that, Larochen had just been gloating about their scanners not working, because he’s using the Galra’s shielding devices still on the ship, cuz of course he has fricking shielding devices that freaking work—  
—there’s no _way_ his friends can get him, stupid Lance, weak Lance, busted Lance, _useless_ Lance—  
—the room spun round him. Lance closed his eyes. He didn’t want every living soul in the freaking Castle of Lions to see him crying. He really didn’t want to see Larochen. He wished he couldn’t hear—or even half-hear—his teammates. None of it helped. This whole situation was awful, and nothing would or could help it be any better.  
He wished he wasn’t here.  
Suddenly, selfishly, horribly, he wished Blue was here.  
He didn’t care what would have happened to her.  
He just wanted her here.  
He just wanted to hear her voice.  
He wanted…  
He wanted not to hurt anymore.  
He wanted his team to come find him now, damn the impossibilities and damn the consequences.  
Also, he really, really, really wished he had just told Larochen the damn information. Babbled everything he knew about Blue, about quintessence, about Voltron, about the tunnel systems in Prosleyt, hell, he even could have rattled off Iverson’s office line and Galaxy Garrison’s _zip code_ to this guy. He could have. But he hadn’t.  
And now an alien machine was breathing for him, every nerve in his body felt like it’d been set on fire, and he couldn’t even move his hands. Or see all that well. Or even hear his friends.  
Trapped and alone inside his mind.  
Dammit.  
Right now, he desperately wished he had spilled his guts to Larochen. Just like the coward he was.  
That would have been the easy way, part of him agreed. And wouldn’t it be nice if it were easy?  
Lance gulped, pulled himself together, threw the thought aside like so much trash.  
_No, no, I d-didn’t do it then, and, and, and I’m not doin it…now. And, and, and wh-when have I…I ever done things the, the easy way?_ He retorted, to himself. Oh, great. He was talkin to himself.  
Man, he was going as crazy as Larochen.  
_**Oh, Lance. Don’t say things like that.**_  
Lance fought back the urge to mentally shriek like his little sisters and instead glared across defiantly at Larochen and his creepy, toothy smile. Tried to, at least. One of Lance’s eyes was already mostly swollen shut from the crash that had landed him in this awful swamp—  
—the crash must have hurt Blue, too—God, he was such an awful pilot—he was—he was the worst pilot ever—  
—and where was Blue—  
_**Surely you’ve guessed by now, Paladin. I drained her dry before you woke up. Honestly. How stupid are you?**_  
Shiro was saying something now, sharp and angry, but Lance couldn’t hear the words. Lance had felt something crack inside him at Larochen’s jab. Not a huge, dramatic snap, not like the sound Lance’s fingers had made when Larochen broke them. This just felt…final. Like the last flicker of hope had guttered and died inside him, leaving only smoky blackness where the light had been.  
He felt so tired again. He hung his head. This was stupid. He was stupid.  
—he couldn’t hear Blue, she wasn’t here, she wasn’t here, she was gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, _**gone**_ —  
—Shiro’s yelling, now—words all garbled—Allura too—  
_**—probably mad at you for getting one of the Lions killed—**_  
Lance didn’t want to agree with Larochen, but—but maybe the quiznaker was right—  
—but wait—hang on a second—  
—Allura—  
—Larochen had said—when he’d been talking to Allura—that he wanted all the Lions—that he knew she had them all—  
—he hadn’t thought Lance had been listening, cuz he’d been getting electrocuted that first, or the second, or however many times he had been—  
—but Lance HAD been able to hear him—he just hadn’t put the pieces together—until now—  
— **all** the Lions?—  
—that meant—  
A spark leapt into life somewhere inside him, sudden and fierce.  
Blue was _alive_.  
And she was _safe_.  
Then Lance laughed, really laughed, despite the fact that no one could hear him, despite the twisting, burning pain in his fingers, in his wrists, in his chest. His head shot up and he looked straight into Larochen’s sneering face, his own eyes sparking.  
_You don’t have her!_ he all but crowed in his mind. _YOU DON’T HAVE BLUE!!_ He crowed again. _HAHAHAHAHA!! YOU QUIZNAKING LIAR, YOU DON’T!! HAVE!! BLUE!_  
Larochen met Lance’s eyes, saw the gleeful realization in them.  
He stopped smiling then.  
The monster’s teeth disappeared. His two yellow eyes narrowed to tiny horizontal slits, and their vertical pupils thinned until they were nothing more than slices of black in the blazing eye sockets.  
The chitin covering Larochen’s neck, peeking up beneath the tattered remains of the dead Galra commander’s uniform, seemed to solidify. Grow, even, until it covered most of the predator’s face in a creepy imitation of Lance’s own paladin helmet. Just left the eyes and the mouth visible.  
_**Perhaps,**_ he mused, _**I do not need all the Lions after all.**_  
Lance’s feelings of half-frantic mirth died away.  
Oh, hell.  
This couldn’t be good.

***

Pidge jumped up, knocking her chair flying backwards as the bastard holding her friend captive very, very deliberately extended one long talon. And very, very slowly, placed the sharp tip just under Lance’s right eyebrow. Pidge saw what little color remained in her friend’s face drain away and saw him close his eyes tight shut. As if that would help stop what they all knew was coming next.  
Larochen pressed down with the razor sharp point of his talon.  
Just enough to draw a thin bead of blood.  
Lance flinched, tried to jerk away. Couldn’t. His throat muscles worked again, but no sound made it out from behind the mask.  
Allura and Shiro said something almost in tandem. The monster laughed. Ignored them. Pressed harder.  
Pidge felt her heart twist up.  
“STOPPIT!” she shouted. Her voice cut through the suddenly, suffocatingly silent room. “YOU BLIND HIM, YOU BLIND THE BLUE LION!!”  
On the screen, the monster paused. Looked back at her. His voice was mildly interested.  
_**Really?**_ It asked. _**Do explain.**_  
Pidge adjusted her glasses microscopically, praying she was making the right move here.  
“You should know that at a certain level, the lion and its paladin share their vision.” she said cooly. That was probably common knowledge. She could BS her way through this without giving out vital info. The dude was crazy enough.  
She had to buy her friends—her other friends—more time.  
Any time now.  
Any second.  
“If you blind the Blue Lion’s bonded paladin, you’ll damage her quintes—you’ll damage its quintessence. You’ll never be able to achieve that level of bonding with Blu—with the Blue Lion. You’ll always be stuck at beginner level. You’ll be lucky if you can even do a few passes half a mile off a planet’s surface.”  
_And Blue will hunt you down, ice your head, and then rip you limb from limb,_ she wanted to but did not say.  
The thing holding her friend smiled.  
_**I’m not interested in flying the lions.**_ It said smoothly. _**What I desire is their quintessence. Their life force. I saw the battle two days since, when Voltron battled the Galra fleet and turned it to so much powder. The energy of Voltron burned the sky with a thousand lights.** _  
Its voice turned dark.  
_**I desired that.** _  
It turned its attention back to Lance.  
_**Then this one fell right into my home. And honestly, draining powerful, individual sources is so much easier than hunting down and draining entire planets full of prey.** _  
It mused for a moment.  
_**I think I shall finish with the blue one, since you have not cooperated with my demands and sent the Lions down. One Lion’s energy will be enough for now.**_  
Pidge sensed rather than saw Allura and Shiro’s anguished exchange of glances. Allura tried to reason with the Larochen. Not that it would do any good.  
“Tell us where you are,” she said, voice even and controlled, if slightly thin, “and—and perhaps we can come to, to an arrangement.“  
That’s right, ‘Lura, Pidge thought approvingly, give Dad and Matt time to crack this—they should be close to breaking the source code of this call on the back end here—Galra shield or no Galra shield, just a few more—tics—just a tiny, tiny bit more—  
—I can see Platt waving his tail frantically in the ventilation shaft, that’s the signal, they’re almostdone they’realmost done, comeonLance, holdonLance—  
Keith was clenching his fists so tightly little flecks of purple energy flicked into the table’s edges, burning tiny spark sized holes into it. He was dying to teleport them all there, he just needed a set of coordinates, anything—  
—something to get them through the storms raging around the planet, come on, come on, come on—  
—hurry UP, guys—  
“—we can’t come to you if we don’t have a rendezvous.” Shiro added. “We want to work with you, but we can’t if we have nothing to go on.”  
The Larochen shrugged lazily, examining the claws on its opposite hand. It flexed them once, twice. Lance blinked, wearily, then closed his eyes again. Oh stars, he looked so tired. The Larochen studied him, and Pidge could have torn its head off at the smirk it gave her shivering, grey-faced friend.  
_**Typically, we go through the eyes. More fun that way.**_ It observed. Lance’s drooping eyes shot open—well, one fully open, the other only making it to half-open, because of the swelling—and locked gazes with them over the Larochen’s shoulder.  
She’d seen Lance arrogant, brash, cocky, and angry.  
But she’d never seen him this scared.  
The thing reached out again, pressed a little harder over Lance’s eye. The blood welled out, became a trickle. Millimeters mattered here. And this thing knew it. Was playing them like a banjo at a hoedown.  
Lance had said that once, about a really tactless planet whose bossy princess was about as subtle as a swift kick to the head.  
They all had laughed at that.  
Pidge thought she’d never laugh again.  
Not after this.  
She screamed at the screen now, more in rage than fear.  
She was going to find the hole this thing hid in, burn it alive, drag out the smoking carcass, and then do it again. She said as much, but with a lot more swear words.  
The thing laughed over its shoulder at her.  
Then turned back round, and struck.

****

Lance saw the claw lengthen, sharpen, drive towards him—he shut his eyes tight—nonononoNO—  
And jerked as burning, awful pain slashed through him—ohgodohgodohgod—  
—this was it, this was how he went out—  
The overwhelming desire to see his teammates, see his family, one last time—or at least try to see them—shot through him—he opened his eyes, saw Larochen sneering at him—  
—Wait, what?—  
—and realized with a start that he could see Larochen sneering at him.  
Lance blinked both eyes frantically. He still had both. How was he—what had—  
_**Typically**_ , **_we go through the eyes_**. Larochen informed him, his own eyes glinting. _**Which is much more fun. But this way is faster.**_  
Lance chanced a look down at his chest. Oooohhhhh, that was where the pain was coming from. Larochen had—  
—oh—  
—stabbed him just over the heart—  
—mmmkay, so that wasn’t good either—  
—wow, was he tired all of a sudden—like, he had been before, but this was—  
—yeah—  
—maybe he could just take like a, a five minute nap and then come back to this later—  
—but wait, somethin was—  
—um, something was important—  
—what exactly was going on?—  
—cuz now Larochen’s eyes were burning with a strange blue light that flickered rapidly in their depths. And then almost instantly disappeared. Lance tried to think more about that. But it was so hard. His teammates were screaming and yelling and cursing pretty loudly. And he was so tired.  
Then he stiffened as he realized what the other guy was doing. The blue light, flaring and then dying away in Larochen’s eyes.  
That was Blue’s quintesseance.  
Larochen was draining Blue’s quintessence. Through _him_.  
A sudden burst of absolute fury burned Lance’s exhaustion away. This bastard was not going to hurt his Lion. Not through using him. Not if Lance had anything to say about it.

 


	4. Oh We’re Not Gonna Take It Anymore

Back in the control room, Allura saw Lance’s dimming eyes shoot open.

Wide open.  
And they were, quite literally, glowing.  
Icy winter white.  
She couldn’t see what happened next, exactly, but the spider-thing tormenting her friend stiffened as if hit with an electric shock. It jerked away from Lance, fell twitching and spasming onto the floor, limbs flailing in opposite directions, cold streaming off its stolen Galra armor like steam.  
It looked excruciatingly painful.  
And Allura was glad.  
Then she looked at Lance. And felt her own heart suddenly spasm.  
“Lance—” she gasped, out of reflex—her Blue Paladin was still glaring down at Larochen, and probably couldn’t hear her—or at least he couldn’t really respond—honestly, she wasn’t sure what kind of state he was in—  
—but in thousands of years, she’d never seen anything like that.  
Lance’s eyes were still glowing white, like the bliz—bliz—blizzards on Earth Shiro had described to her, once—they were white and glowing and brighter than she had ever seen them—  
—but what really concerned her was his heart.  
Because that had flickered white too.  
The thing writhing on the floor screamed, high and piercing. It was clutching at its forearm, thick black blood welling sluggishly from where one of its talons had been.  
Allura felt her own color drain away.  
He’d been trying to drain out Blue’s quintessence, that much was obvious. Riana had said something about the larochen’s talons being the way they stole quintessence from their victims—  
—and Lance had stopped him—  
—but—  
—but—  
—but Larochen was bleeding—  
—and there was something else very wrong here—  
—what was it—  
—something—  
Platt’s squeaky voice broke in on her fragmented thoughts.  
“Princess princess princess the swearing humans and the red eyes have the coordinates, the angry red-eyed one is beaming there right now, princess, princess, princess—the worried one is preparing a healing pod but needs to know what to prepare for—princess princess princess, will the blue one be all right?—“  
Allura found her voice. Forced herself to speak instead of scream. “Paladins, get to your lions. This isn’t over yet.”  
She shared a look with Coran. He said what she was afraid of.  
“Princess, I think they have to go to the—“  
“Yes.”  
“—and there isn’t much—“  
“No.”  
From the other end of the table, Keith had already jumped up, fire springing into life between his palms. Allura sensed the pull and warp of genuine power around him. He was already starting to gather in energies to warp the rest of the paladins—and half of the bridge, if he wasn’t careful—into the dead Galra ship to rescue their friend.  
“ **What are you talking about**?!” he all but roared, his eyes glowing red and gold as burning embers. He pointed to the screen where Larochen writhed, screaming, on the floor. And where Lance, still entangled in twisting wires and shifting light, still slumped, eyes white and sightless.  
“We gotta go get _Lance_!”  
Allura held up a hand.  
“Yes, I know. Rayzor’s getting him right now. But Lance doesn’t need the rest of you paladins there.” She finished quickly, before Keith could do more than look hopelessly confused and hurt and bewildered—  
“—Lance needs you, needs all of you, elsewhere, now. Somewhere else entirely. You’ll have to hurry. Larochen probably followed him there.”

  
*** 

Rayzor was scared. And he was pissed.  
Why was every villain they encountered able to just warp away like that?  
_Except Jenick._ his brain supplied. Rayzor felt a brief, unpleasant little expression crack his face at that. _Yes. Except Jenick._  
He’d been able to fight Jenick. Even just briefly.  
But he hadn’t been able to fight this thing.  
The Larochen had choked off a scream and looked up at him, wide-eyed, as he’d appeared. Then scuttled backwards, narrowly avoiding a swift beheading. Then it had wormed its way out into the darkness of the broken ship. And no matter where Rayzor looked—or shot, repeatedly—he hadn’t appeared again.  
The dirty little coward.  
Rayzor kept an eye on the darkness as he adjusted his hold on Lance. Their next window for teleportation was in fourteen tics. Which, Rayzor _knew_ , with his _brain_ , wasn’t long at all, but it still felt like an eternity to him.  
There was blood all over Lance and all over his claws. Rayzor hoped he hadn’t made it worse when he’d pried Lance free from that quiznaking torture table.  
He didn’t think he’d made things worse.  
But he didn’t know.  
_He didn’t know_.  
And quiznak, he hadn’t been able to get the mask fully off. But Aurelis had said they needed to disconnect it from the machines first so he could even bring Lance back to them, and they’d have to get a closer look and take that thing off in the med bay.  
Rayzor thought Aurelis could take it off right. He hoped so.  
Aurelis had walked him through most of this anyway, although his voice had been staticy and patchy through the worsening electrical storms that swirled around this blasted hellhole of a planet.  
Turn off the machines, sever the lines, remember the names on the canisters, okay, okay, done, done—  
—what else did he have to do—  
Agh, right, before the comms shorted out, Aurelis had said something about keeping Lance responsive. Rayzor wasn’t exactly sure how to do that. It wasn’t like he could just trade quotes with Lance, now, could he? You couldn’t really keep up a one-sided conversation. He couldn’t, anyway. Lance might have been able to. If he’d been able to talk. But it wasn’t fair to ask Lance to do that. Not now. And besides, Rayzor couldn’t think of any quotes. And that part from that show, or was it the movie—the part about being a leaf on the wind, the part that Lance always liked to quote—that part hadn’t ended well for the pilot.  
And Lance was a pilot.  
So Rayzor didn’t want to quote that part. Not now.  
Seven parsecs left. Wait, no, now Riana was saying something had changed, winds had blown up out of the south, they’d have to wait a devrant instead.  
Godsdammit. This wasn’t _good_.  
Dammit, he was an experienced guard captain and a Council member, not a medic. No matter how badly he wished he had more than basic medical training at the moment, he just didn’t. And, Lance was a human. Their biology was entirely different. And how the hell did you fix a quintessence drain, anyway? Were damaged humans supposed to be this, this floppy? Whenever Keith got the hell knocked out of him, he was this floppy, usually, but it never meant anything good. How much blood could humans lose? And how many hearts did humans have? Didn’t they have a backup heart somewhere? Or a backup lung? Or something? Rayzor hoped Aurelis might know.  
“I haven’t the faintest idea!” Aurelis said crossly when their comms connected again. “Honestly, Rayzor, just—just focus on getting him out alive and I’ll take care of the rest!”  
“He’s so quiet.” Rayzor mumbled. He hadn’t realized his claws were shaking until he readjusted his grip on his blaster, used his other arm to pull Lance’s sad, limp form in a little closer to him. Rayzor glared poisonously around the empty ship, but all was silent. No sound from Larochen. No sound from Lance.  
He was really still.  
None of the restless energy that characterized this one, no quick movements, no gesticulating hands. Fingers all curled up, curled up _wrong_ , and so quiet. Dark blood oozing out from the chest wound onto Rayzor’s claws, the flow lessening now, slow, sluggish. The wound had mostly closed. Was that good? Or bad? Good? No, bad. No—Rayzor didn’t know anymore.  
Gods, why was he so _scared_. This wasn’t his first rescue, this wasn’t his first dying soldier, this wasn’t his first fracking _mission_. Why was this one getting to him so badly?  
Rayzor was not one for much introspection, but far deep down, he had a guess. Because for some unfathomable and extremely inconvenient reason, he was remembering—no, reliving—another mission. Held long ago. And he was scared because he hated feeling this helpless. Again.  
“Quiznaking suns and stars, he’s _never_ this _quiet_ , ‘Relius.”  
His old friend’s voice changed slightly. Probably also remembering that same rescue mission for someone Rayzor had also cared for very much. And who had been very much like Lance.  
But that mission hadn’t ended well at all.  
“Ah. Oh. Yes. Um.” Aurelis’s tone changed, became brisk, cool, business-like. “Well, I can personally assure you, Captain, that your friend is alive. I’m reading his vitals here, and the med bay is prepped, and our team is standing by. We are prepared, this time. All you need to do is get him back to base so I can take over.” His friend’s voice warmed a little, became slightly more reassuring. “Hold on just a parsec. Riana’s recalculating your trajectory. We may not have to wait another devrant, we might be able to—aha! Aha! AHA!! Here we go! NOW, Rayzor NOW NOW NOW—“  
Razyor didn’t have to be told twice. He jammed the teleportation watch and watched as the dark and dead Galra ship whirled away. As the lights coelesced around him and Lance, Rayzor kept staring out into the blackness.  
And made a mental vow. Once Lance was safely in the med bay, once Aurelis was taking care of him, Rayzor and Riana would talk. And figure out a way to blow this ship, this stupid, awful, broken place that had become Larochen’s lair, into tiny atomic dust.  
And then they’d shatter the surrounding continent.  
They’d see if Larochen could hide from _that_.

 


	5. Lost in the Maze

  
Shiro pounded through the astral plane, knowing as well as seeing that the other paladins kept pace beside him. Their physical bodies might still be in their lions, but the Paladins of Voltron were hauling tail through the astral plane, the mysterious realm where mind and spirit could roam though space and time.  
Lance would have loved this. Probably would have pretended to be the Tardis.  
—Lance was going to love this, Shiro reminded himself. We’re here to find Lance. He’s not gone yet. But Allura said he’s in danger, still—  
“I don’t get it!” Hunk huffed from beside him, wielding his huge cannon-like bayard but still managing to keep up a good pace. “Why is Lance—in danger—here too? How is he even here, anyway?”  
“You heard Coran!” Keith said sharply, but Shiro and the rest knew his voice was edged with worry for his missing teammate, not anger at Hunk. “This realm basically runs on quintessence. Larochens drain it out of their victims—but Lance used his ice powers and stopped the drain—“  
“—so that’s what it was?!” exclaimed Pidge. “How was he able to do—oh! He froze his own heart?”  
“He didn’t freeze his own heart, he stopped the current.” Shiro supplied grimly. “He couldn’t stop Larochen taking his quintessence, so he froze it. Which Allura thinks would have sent him—well, that is, his mind—here.”  
“That sounds…dangerous.” Hunk said nervously. “Doesn’t Lance—doesn’t he sort of…need quintessence?”  
Shiro nodded, once. Hunk gulped, looking around the endless, starry landscape that stretched above, around, beneath them. “This place is so big.” he said, voice cracking a little. “How are we ever gonna find—“  
“Don’t give up.” Shiro said, making sure his own voice stayed even, controlled. “Allura said our lions would send us as close as they could—we just have to—“  
A voice, cutting in across the cold silence.  
One they knew.  
_“BLUE! BLUE, RUN!!”_  
As one, the other paladins of Voltron doubled their pace. Suddenly, far off in the distance, they saw three figures. One, a small, kitten-sized, four legged creature that seemed wounded, somehow. Small and hurt though it was, it was still limping slowly forward, roaring desperately as it tried to get back between the other two.  
One, a tall black shadow that moved and darted, long taloned claws reaching out towards the stumbling, limping figure that was doing its best to stay between it and the small kitten. The second figure was wobbling on its feet and clearly massively outclassed. And it was a figure they all knew very well.  
“LANCE!! HANG ON! WE’RE COMING!!” bellowed Shiro, and the others were half a breath behind him, adding their own unique contributions to the mix.  
**“Lance!!”** roared Keith. **“GET OUTTA THE WAY, I’M GONNA BARBEQUE THIS PUNK—“**  
“LANCE!!” hollered Hunk. “WE GOT THIS BUDDY—“  
“LANCE!!” shrieked Pidge. “TELL THAT #$# &# WE’RE COMING FOR HIS **#@#$#—“  
The second figure staggered, then looked back at them. The first figure saw the opening and struck, slashing the second figure across the chest. The second figure fell hard, crashed down onto its hands and knees. Cried out as its hands made contact with the ground.  
The first figure kicked the second in the ribs, in the head, in the stomach until it fell down, curled up into itself. Then the first figure stood over him, talons raised.  
Then the little four legged creature gathered itself and jumped at the shadow’s back, claws raking hard.  
The shadow bent down, threw it off. Kicked it hard in the underbelly so that it cried weakly out and then was still.  
The second figure looking up from where it lay on the ground, shaking its head. Struggling back up to its knees, yelling something indistinguishable. White light sparking into life in its broken hands. It was on its knees, now, shooting freezing cold light at the black figure’s chest.  
Shiro was close enough to see them clearly now. Ignited his Galra hand as he ran. “LANCE!” he yelled again. “WE’RE—“  
Lance turned round, face pale.  
“NO, SHIRO!” he yelled, voice faint and far off. “ITSA—“  
Every sense, every instinct in Shiro suddenly screamed at him to stop, now. Shiro felt a cold shock run through him. He’d been so intent on getting Lance out of here that he’d—  
Shiro skidded to a stop just before he hit the wall.  
He reached out a hand, grabbed Pidge by the collar of her Paladin’s armor, yanked her backwards as well. Hunk saw them stop and slid to a halt himself, expression confused and frustrated.  
Keith was too far ahead to stop. He hit the invisible obstacle at full speed and went flying backward, bouncing off the ground a few times. The “oofs” and “aaghs” he gave sounded more surprised than pained. But Shiro ground his teeth in anger at himself anyway.  
“Keith. You all right?”  
Keith sat up, eyes sparking yellow underneath his helmet. “Yeah. Stupid booby trap.” He angrily shot to his feet and, clutching his bayard in a vise-like grip, marched over to where the other paladins stood. He glared furiously through his helmet at the invisible thing that had sucker-punched him.  
Hunk was squinting at the air in front of him. “I don’t think it’s just a booby trap.” he said slowly. “I think it’s a…maze. See?” Hunk cocked his head to the side and carefully held his bayard a few inches out in front of him. Dragged the muzzle of the barrel along the wall. Sparks popped in a straight line as he drew it. “If you look at it just outta the corner of your eye you can see it. Sorta.”  
Pidge studied it carefully. “Invisible. Like the one the training room.” She tapped her bayard on it thoughtfully. “It’s probably Larochen pulling some sorta stunt to keep Lance trapped here. The bastard.”  
Shiro frowned, looking back at Lance and the shadow he’d been fighting. The black taloned thing was gone. The only thing moving in what must be the middle of the maze was the small four legged creature. It was dragging itself painfully across to where Lance had collapsed, face first, onto the ground. It mewled piteously, licked his hair, batted at his head with a tiny little paw.  
Lance didn’t move.  
Shiro swallowed hard. Looked round for the threat.  
“Where’d Larochen go?” he asked. “I don’t—“  
Another voice.  
_**Well, well, well, well. You did come. I wasn’t sure you would.**_  
The four paladins jerked around, went back to back, weapons out, looking for the threat.  
**_Go ahead._** Larochen’s voice offered. **_Try and save him. It is too late, you know._**  
“It’s _never_ too late.” Keith snarled, and Hunk growled in furious agreement.  
A shadow moved in the maze. An image, flickering into life in the wall in front of them. Shiro snarled and activated his Galra arm. Purple light blazed into being, reflecting back at him out of Larochen’s eyes.  
Larochen studied them out of his—out of its—thin pupiled eyes, and bounced a meditative talon through the air.  
_**One, two, three, four.**_ He counted. _ **All** ** _here._ Well. I’m not one to stop you from trying.**_  
_**But—i**_ t yawned, waved a hand. _ **It’s more interesting this way.**_  
Shiro guessed what it was doing just a second too late—Hunk’s panicked cry of “PIDGE! SHIRO!” and Shiro’s grasping hand were cut off by a thick and dark wall that shot up, cutting their already small group into two. In an instant, Keith and Hunk were partitioned off, away from him and Pidge. The invisible walls began to darken, blackness swirling and marbling across the thick, high walls.  
Shiro saw Keith charge the barrier with his bayard but get sent shooting backwards into Hunk for his pains.  
Shiro instinctively sliced at the wall with his Galra arm. And accomplished nothing besides jarring his teeth and making the walls shoot angry purple sparks.  
Pidge was crying out, tugging at his arm. “Shiro! Shiro, stop! You’re hurting him!”  
Shiro blinked red out of the corners of his vision—this thing was separating his team, was trying to hurt them, had already hurt Lance, he hoped slicing at the stupid wall would hurt Larochen—  
—but—  
—Katie didn’t care about Larochen—  
—wait, stop, listen to Katie—  
Katie dragged hard on his other arm, small fingers digging desperately into the elbow the Galra hadn’t chopped off—she was pointing, half-crying—  
Shiro abruptly stopped trying to cut his way through the darkening wall to get back to Keith, to unite the group once more so they could all get out of this together and get Lance back.  
Because Katie was right. They weren’t hurting Larochen by attacking the maze.  
They were hurting Lance.  
That’s what she was saying.  
“—he started seizing when you hit the wall,” Katie gulped, “—I saw, it, but, but, he stopped, right before the walls darkened all the way, I don’t know if that’s a good or a, a bad thing—Larochen’s linked this place to Lance, somehow—so, so, so don’t burn it, or anything—“  
Shiro backed away from the wall, feeling his insides twist. Oh, God, he hoped he hadn’t hurt Lance—hurt him any more than—than he already was—  
The maze around them was completely dark now. No apparent openings anywhere. The only source of light came from Shiro’s angrily glowing purple arm, and the slash Shiro’d made when he’d tried to get back to Keith and Hunk.  
The sparks shooting from the gap in the wall intensified, growing brighter and brighter until it hurt to look at it. Shiro shielded his eyes with his hand and shot a glance over at Katie.  
“Do you remember the way through the maze? Maybe Lance made us a way in?” he asked. Katie shook her head, her short hair bouncing in front of her eyes underneath her paladin’s helmet. “N—no, it, it changes depending on the setting—but—wait, look, there! Something’s happening!”  
The bright light shimmered, dimmed. Images swirled across the wall in front of it. There was no break in it, no way to get out or continue the maze.  
But maybe the way out was through the picture?  
Besides. Shiro recognized the buildings at once.  
“Garrison.” he said tonelessly. Pidge popped up beside him, leaning forward intently.  
“That’s not a current picture.” she informed him. Shiro shot her a quizzical look. She pointed over his arm. “That tree there got chopped down last autumn. Big windstorm damaged it.”  
She squinted. “Is that—Lance?”  
Shiro looked harder at the image too. A small knot of cadets—first years, by their uniforms—walked along the sidewalk leading to the library, laughing, joking, throwing things at each other. A figure ran up to them from behind, calling to them happily. And loudly.  
Oh, yes. He could tell which one was Lance.  
“Guys guys guys! I got in!”  
One of the other boys high fived him, laughing along. “Nice! I told you we had to stick together!” Lance grinned and jumped to hold the door open for the group as they made their way into the library, and not-so-quietly found a study room that could fit their joshing group.  
“Which fleet, Lance?” the first kid asked.  
Lance stopped dueling another kid with pencils and looked up, blinking.  
“Wha?”  
“Which class did you get?” the first kid pressed. “I’m in Iverson’s group—which is gonna be interesting—man, I hear he’s a tough fighter pilot, but one of the best—maybe we got in the same one—so, which one did you get into?” He laughed. “We’ve been in the same grade since, what, kindergarten? So. Which one did you get?”  
Lance’s grin did not quite reach his eyes.  
“Uh, Delta Five. I got into Delta-Five.”  
The first kid blinked slowly. “Delta? Which instructor is that? I didn’t see it on the—“  
“—‘m a cargo pilot.” Lance said carelessly. At least, he’d wanted it to seem like he didn’t care.  
Shiro wasn’t fooled. By the tightening grip on his arm, Pidge had noticed it too.  
The study room had gone very quiet, very suddenly.  
“…oh.” the first kid said, suddenly not meeting Lance’s eyes. “That’s…nice.”  
Lance swallowed hard at that, looked quickly around the room. None of the other kids would meet his eyes. Lance twiddled his pencil in between his fingers for a second.  
“Just for awhile.” he said breezily. “I asked Iverson, I mean, I hunted him down across campus and sorta camped out outside his office, and found out that if I get good enough grades this first quarter I can retake the flight simulator test again right after winter break, and then I can—then I can….” his voice trailed off at the strained silence in the room.  
“So. Uh, you guys wanna start studying for that systems test on Friday?” Lance started pulling books out of his overstuffed backpack. “I got this idea about maneuvers, too—maybe we can throw around a few tips, you know, trade info across the divisions?”  
He paused, looked round. “Chuck? Beren? Angelo?”  
The first kid—Angelo—had pulled out his own books and sat a little apart from him, stony faced. “No, I’m good. Gotta concentrate on these fighter class intro lessons.”  
Lance nodded energetically, cast a hopeful look at the others. The chunky one he’d been fencing with curled over his advanced calculus and wouldn’t look at him. Lance blinked, then turned round in his chair to the last kid. “Beren? How about you?”  
Beren shrugged, a look that Shiro couldn’t quite name but nevertheless intensely disliked sliding into his face. “Not now, McClain. Maybe later.”  
Lance was disappointed and a little hurt, but hid it well. Shiro’s frown deepened as Lance eventually left the room, with his teammates’ reluctant agreements to “do this again later sometime” trailing after him as he left.  
The images blurred, shifted. Showed the cafeteria. Lance was there too, as was the first kid. From the notes tilting out the side of Lance’s book and the fall jackets people were wearing, they were several weeks into the first year now. And Lance was clearly taking extra courses.  
Shiro felt his eyebrows jump in slight surprise as he caught sight of the textbooks sticking out the side of Lance’s bulging backpack. Most first years didn’t bother with those extra courses yet. Didn’t want to spend their nights off in the lecture hall. Most cadets just threw them into second year and barely passed.  
Lance got his tray, scanned the room. Hesitated for just a second, then made his way over and sat down at Angelo’s table. He started to say something, paused, then finished his thought.  
“Lotta, lotta work, huh?” he hazarded. Angelo said nothing, continuing to stare angrily at a thick book and a stack of papers. He made a grouchy noise of assent. Lance, taking this as a sign of life, tried to continue the conversation.  
“You, uh, want to take a break, or something? You look like you could use—“  
“No.” Angelo snapped, abruptly turning a page. Lance winced, backpedaled.  
“Oh, right, that systems test is tomorrow. Got it.”  
He waited a few more minutes. Angelo kept on religiously reading. Closed one book. Reached to open another.  
“Hey, um, Angelo?”  
“What?”  
“You wanna, uh, watch Serenity later this week? After the test? Over the weekend, maybe? I hear it’s an awesome—plus, you know, it’s in—space…”  
Lance’s offer petered out mid-sentence. Angelo hadn’t even bothered to look up, but his reply was flat, brusque.  
“Maybe you don’t take anything seriously, McClain, but fighter class is pretty hard.” He jerked open the new book, kept on reading. Didn’t look at Lance.  
Lance opened his mouth, looking hurt, then shut it again. “Yeah, yeah. I know that, Angelo.”  
Shiro wanted to reach into the past and shake that little Angelo shit so hard his eyes bugged out. Couldn’t he see Lance was taking extra classes? He could have, if he’d cared to look. Lance had about four extra textbooks breaking his backpack apart, and besides, Lance wasn’t even bothering him that much. Angelo was sitting in the common cafeteria during the lunch rush, for crying out loud.  
Lance, shoulders slumped a little, fiddled with a spoon. He tried again. “I know, I just, well, I figured you could use a break. You’re looking pretty stres—”  
Angelo’s reply was more snarl than statement. “I don’t have time for a break.”  
“Oh. Okay.”  
Lance pulled out a book and notebook of his own, but his heart wasn’t in it. Shiro could tell by the way Lance played with his pencil for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do. He halfheartedly checked over his own work, then watched the other boy frown over the new calculations. And Lance tried one last time.  
“You, uh, need any help? With that? I’m taking some night classes and I think I might—”  
Angelo’s eyes flamed and he stiffened as if he’d been shocked in the spine. The look he turned on Lance could have curdled milk.  
“It’s nothing you would know, cargo pilot.” he spat. Then Angelo stood up, slammed his books shut, and stalked away.  
Lance stayed where he was at the table, face momentarily twisting, his expression blank and stunned. He blinked a few times, cleared his throat. Once, twice. Three times. Looked round at the other tables. Some of the teachers sat nearby, suddenly engrossed in their phones. The other students seated nearby were either studiously ignoring him or completely oblivious.  
“Oh.” said Lance out loud to the empty seat in front of him. “Ah. Um. Okay.”  
More images, more seasons, more years spun quickly past. Not quickly enough for Shiro, who didn’t want to see how Angelo and Beren hadn’t sat with Lance again. And had moved away when he’d tried to join them. He didn’t want to see how Chuck had stopped saying hey to Lance in the halls. Eventually, Lance stopped seeking the three of them out. And visibly held himself back from saying hello when he did see them.  
They hadn’t noticed.  
None of them had.  
Other images flicked through, faster, more erratic as the sparks began to die. One more recent one. Iverson, telling Lance he was a screw up, lucky to be in Garrison, that the only reason he was there was due to a mistake.  
Then the light died out, went dark. Shiro and Katie were left alone in the maze. Still without a way to find their friend.  
“—UCKERS.” Katie spat beside him, voice cracking slightly. “They didn’t—they didn’t have to—to do that—to, to Lance—just because he was a, a cargo pilot…”  
Shiro looked down at her, realized both his hands were shaking, he was fisting them so tightly.  
“Yeah.” was all he said, but he didn’t need to say more. Katie’s furious tear-studded eyes said it all. Shiro tallied them away as one more thing he was going to tear into Garrison about—“equal treatment of all pilot students”, hah, his glowing Galra ARM—  
—but now Keith is yelling something through the walls, about freaking parents, and Katie’s tugging on his arm again, and they have to figure out a way to get through this maze and save Lance.  
Shiro didn’t know how they’d do that.  
Maybe Keith and Hunk had a better idea.

****  
Keith swore again at the top of his voice, kicking angrily at the wall.  
“Don’t do that!” Hunk pleaded. “You heard Katie before the walls closed up, it hurts Lance, not Larochen!”  
Keith stopped his foot from impacting the wall just in time, clenched his bayard so hard he knew his knuckles must be turning white under his gloves.  
“I can’t use my jetpack!” he fumed. “Every time I do, the wall gets higher. You got anything yet, big guy?”  
Hunk continued tapping at it, turning his head this way and that. “Nope. Nada. No, wait! Something’s happening!”  
Keith whirled around, hoping savagely that Larochen was materializing on their side of the wall so that Keith could shiskabob him and then Hunk could blast whatever was left into smithereens—  
But it wasn’t Larochen.  
It was an image—on the wall? in the wall? oh, who the hell cared—expanding and rippling out until it filled the space in front of them.  
Was this going to be a doorway? Maybe. He’d have to watch it closely. See if it was.  
Lance, long legs dangling, sitting on his bunk at the Garrison, Facetiming a man and woman Keith didn’t recognize. But who Hunk clearly did.  
“Whoa! Mr and Mrs McClain!” he exclaimed.  
Keith squinted. Now that Hunk mentioned it, the man did have Lance’s sharp nose. And the woman had Lance’s eyes.  
But right now neither of them had Lance’s smile.  
The woman was crying, actually, sniffling over the connection, her face red and blotchy. The man looked angry.  
“—do you mean, you didn’t make it in this time?” he asked. The voice was hard, tense. Frustrated.  
Out of the phone’s line of sight, Lance’s hand tightened hard on the wood of the bedframe.  
“I mean I didn’t get in this time either,” he said, and his usually bright voice was so downcast that Keith—Keith—thought that he needed a hug.  
“I—I took the extra courses, and, I thought I had it this time—but I screwed up. ‘M sorry.”  
Angry silence on the other end of the line. More sniffles from the woman.  
“I’m trying again next semester.” Lance offered. “I’m top of my class in the cargo sections, and I’ve got it all lined up—I found reviews and more practice problems and my frien—uh, one, one of my, my many, many friends—can tutor me in the mechanics side, and—and I promise I’ll do better—I will…um…so…”  
His voice trailed off. He tried again. “H…how are the rest of you…doing…?”  
The man huffed angrily. “We’re fine. Disappointed, but fine. I have to go to work now. Here.” The view on the phone shifted until only the woman was there. “Talk to your mother.”  
Heavy feet banging away downstairs. A muttered but still overheard “—knew we had too many kids—“ made it over the line.  
Lance flinched as if he’d been struck.  
Keith stared blankly at the screen. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Prick.” he snarled. Hunk looked distressed, but nodded.  
But now the woman was talking, and the sound of her sad voice broke through Hunk’s confused reflection that Mr. McClain wasn’t always like that—or—was he—  
—well—  
—anyways—  
“—just says that when he’s tired, you know that.” Mrs. McClain said, starting to cry again. “Oh, Lance, why don’t you just care a little more?”  
Lance went very still, knuckles gripping the wood so hard they cracked.  
“I—“  
She went on, ignoring him, wiping away the drops still trickling down her cheeks. “He was so proud—he told everyone on his shift that you’re going to be a fighter pilot, and now if anyone asks, he has to say you’re still in cargo class.”  
Lance winced at that, but quickly hid it.  
“No, Mom, I—do care—I do—“  
The sound of squalling children interrupted the call, along with Mr. McClain’s roar of “MAAAARRRIIIIAAAAA your children are trying to KILL EACH OTHER AGAIN!”  
Mrs. McClain stopped crying abruptly and briefly disappeared from view. Angry shouting from off screen. Her face appeared again, blotchy, frustrated, red from crying.  
“Lance, darling, next time just try harder. I know you’ll do fine.”  
Lance swallowed hard.  
“But—but Mom—“  
“I have to go.” she said, sounding harrassed. “You know how it is. Love you darling make us proud bye.”  
She ended the call. Lance was left staring at the phone.  
Keith ground his teeth as another image swirled into being. Lance, beaming, punching in his parents’ number. Grinning as the other end picked up.  
“Guess who’s a FIGHTER PILOT!” he crowed, then waited expectantly.  
A little boy’s voice. “Whoz dis?”  
Lance blinked, changed his tone slightly. “Heeeeeey, Tonio, Tony, Tony guy, my buddy, mah man! Uh, is, is Aunt Maria there? Can she talk?”  
“ ‘jus a sek.’ ” Tonio said seriously. Then, without moving the phone away from his face, the little boy shrieked his message as if he’d just been bitten by a rabies-infested bat.  
“AUNT MAWIA YOUW PHONE WINGING!!”  
Lance jerked the phone away from his ear, half-laughing, half-wincing at the same time. He stuck the end of one finger in his injured ear and wiggled it around, eyes half-squinching shut.  
“Aaaaaaaahahaha.” he said to himself. “Got the McClain lungs all right.”  
Noises on the other end of the phone. Boom thumps that might have been Antonio spitting into the receiver, toddler feet thudding away, or the phone bouncing from high to low surfaces all crackled over the speaker. Finally, a woman’s voice. Tired. Strained.  
“—yes? Who is—“  
“MOM!” Lance crowed. “IT’S ME! YOUR FIGHTER PILOT!” He waited, grinning expectantly.  
There was a brief pause on the other end of the line.  
“Lance? Oh, Lance!” the woman said, and, while her voice was delighted, even Keith could pick up on the strain and distraction in her voice. “That’s great, honey, we’re so proud—listen, I’m sorry, but, I’m waiting for your father to call me back—I need to pick him up from work today—so I’m sorry I’ll have to cut this short—“  
Hunk saw his friend blink, swallow hard in disappointment, then shake his head, once, put on a cheery smile and a tone to match—  
“—no worries, Ma, just wanted to tell you as soon as I, as soon as I heard—“  
Tonio screaming something in the background.  
“—yesyes, sweetie, good job—stop, Tony, put it down—I’m so proud of you Lance I know you wanted—stop, Tony—I’ll be sure to tell your father—we’re so glad you finally passed—stopit, Tony, right now—oh, dear—I love you lots, third time’s the charm, right, I’ll send you a cake or something, okay?”  
Hunk frowned. At “third time’s the charm,” he’d seen Lance swallow. Hard. And now Keith was hollering at the screen “WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!”—  
but the memory wasn’t over, Lance was forcing himself to respond. But Hunk’s friend’s voice was nowhere near its usual energy level when he spoke next.  
“Thanks, Mom.”  
“—so glad you finally got it, we’re so proud of you!” More rustling. Wet sounds. “No, Tony! Stop tha—“  
Click.  
Lance lowered the phone from his ear slowly. Waited for a few minutes, halfheartedly turning the phone over in his hands.  
No one called back.  
Hunk saw Lance’s shoulders sag in disappointment as the memory ended, and felt his own tighten in hot indignation. Lance had been so proud of finally getting into fighter class. He should have been told he was—his parents should have…they should…have…  
Hunk fumbled to think of the right thing, and failed. Well, then. He personally knew what he was going to do.  He caught Keith’s eye. The Red Paladin was looking grimmer than usual. Which was saying something. Hunk hefted his bayard, looking around for something to shoot.  
“When we get back to the castle,” he said slowly, “I know what I’m gonna do.”  
Keith looked at him, puzzled. “What?”  
Hunk cocked his gun meaningfully. “Make a whole semi-truck load full of cookies. Chocolate chip. They’re Lance’s favorite.”  
For just a second, Keith stopped narrowly studying the wall for exits. And grinned, albeit fleetingly. The gesture made him seem a whole lot younger.  
“And we’ll put them all in his room.” he said conspiratorially. “In the shape of a fighter. No! We’ll make a huge Lion. And we can build the pilot seat around his desk. It’ll be awesome.”  
Hunk’s eyes lit up. “YES. You are a genius, Kogane.”  
Keith made a mock little bow with his head. Then, clearly tiring of studying the wall for a non-existent exit, extended his bayard to its full, glowing, deadly length. Behind his helmet, his dark eyes suddenly gleamed gold.  
“Let’s take this bastard down.” he said.  
Hunk grinned back. “Let’s.”  
Keith tapped his helmet experimentally. “Shiro? You find a way out yet?” Then he frowned. Hunk did too. Keith’s voice wasn’t carrying over the comms. Keith shot him a worried look.  
“Hunk, could you—?”  
“Huh? Yeah, sure.” Hunk deactivated his bayard and held out his hands for Keith’s helmet. Keith pulled it off his head—frizzing his mullet in the process, Hunk noted with secret delight, Lance would die laughing when Hunk described it to him—and held it out to Hunk. Hunk gently took it, worked with the wiring a little.  
“Hm.” he mused. Keith shot him a look. “What?”  
“Somethin’s intentionally scrambling the comms systems.” Hunk mused. He cast a dark look upwards. “I bet it rhymes with Larochen.”  
Keith scowled.  
“Back in the control room, Lance said Blue was silent. You think Larochen screwed up his communication with Blue too, somehow?”  
Hunk ground his teeth at the memory of Lance’s white, scared face, then made himself relax. The delicate little wirings in Keith’s helmet didn’t need to be pulverized.  
“Yeah. Probably.”  
Keith’s scowl darkened. “When I get my hands on that guy—“  
“—you’re gonna have to stand in line.” Hunk finished. He handed the helmet back to Keith. “Try that. I hacked into a frequency Pidge and I found the other day.” Hunk’s usually friendly grin was practically predatory. “Let’s see how Larochen likes it when people can fight back.”  
Keith took his helmet back, jammed it on. “Oh, and—hey, Hunk, when we get back to Earth, I wanna meet Mr. McClain.”  
Hunk raised his eyebrow slightly. “Yeah?”  
Keith’s bayard thrummed where he clenched it in one tight fist. “Yeah. Just to—I dunno. Talk. A little.”  
Hunk studied him. “Really.”  
Keith’s eyes were glowing gold.  
“Yeah. Really.”  
Hunk sighed, rubbed the top of his helmet with the heel of one glove. “This is about the too many kids comment, isn’t it.”  
Keith’s eyes had completely lost their violet shade. “Yes. It is.”

*** 


	6. I'm Just Dreaming Of Tearing You Apart

Shiro knew the comms were working again when he heard Keith roaring on the other end of the line.

“—SERIOUSLY, THOUGH, WHO THE HELL SAYS THEY HAVE TOO MANY KIDS, EVEN IF THEY ARE TIRED?! LANCE FRIGGIN HEARD THEM SAY THAT!!—ohheyShiro—”  
“Keith!” Shiro shouted back over the comms. “Are you okay?! What’s happening?!”  
“—rochen blocked our comms, but Hunk got em working again—we can’t get outta here, what about you and Pidge?—“  
“No. No exit here either. And jetpacks don’t work. We can’t dig our way out, either.”  
Shiro heard his teammate’s voice start to break with frustration. And something else.  
“We can’t just stay here, Shiro! It’ll take us too long to get through the maze. Different time flow here or not, we’re running out of time!”  
“I know, but—“  
“Remember, we can’t attack the maze!” Katie said, with tears in her voice. “We just hurt Lance more that way!”  
“Whoa, you’re right!” Hunk said, and the sound of his cannon powering up stopped abruptly. “No shooting Lance’s mind maze, got it.” His voice trembled a little in worry and frustration. “But what else can we do, guys? We can’t just sit here and let Lance—“  
A low laughing sound reached Shiro’s ears. He glared up. He couldn’t see anything in the pitch blackness the sky was showing him, but for the briefest instant, Larochen’s reflection glinted off the dark wall on Shiro’s left side. He seemed to be hovering, just over the maze.  
That gods-awful voice came over their speakers again.  
You’re just working yourselves up over nothing. He’s fading, now, almost gone. And you. Are. Next.  
God, he sounded just like the announcers in that damn Galra arena had. Watching them. Taunting them. Enjoying the little game.  
But that mental image gave Shiro an idea. He kept his voice low. “Katie’s right. We can’t attack the maze. You can’t _see anything useful in it_.”  
He hoped he’d emphasized the right words in that sentence. But Keith had grunted. So did Hunk. Katie met his eyes and nodded, readying her bayard.  
Shiro furrowed his eyes, thought back to the first fight where he’d been called “Champion”. Remembered what he’d done to that particularly twisted announcer.  
Viewboxes were _so_ badly constructed sometimes.  
Just being up high didn’t mean you were invulnerable to attack, after all.  
Because if you could be seen…you were still a target.  
“Good news is, though, we don’t have to attack the maze.”  
Shiro spun around to where the reflection had shown him Larochen was, lightning crackling into life inside both of his palms.  
“We need to—”  
He shouted the next order.  
“—LIGHT THAT BASTARD **UP**!!”  
The others didn’t need to be told twice. The dark space above the maze—and the flailing form within it—was suddenly and simultaneously struck by  
a) lightning,  
b) fire,  
c) rapidly repeating bolts of plasmic energy, and, last but not least,  
d) electrical currents so strong that Katie’s hair fizzed underneath her helmet.  
“KEITH!” Shiro shouted, struck by a sudden idea, “TELEPORT UP TO WHERE HE IS!! NOW!!”  
Almost before the words left his mouth, Keith had teleported up behind Larochen’s flailing back. Swiftly turned before the walls could grow up to match him, taking in their position, getting an eagle’s eye view of the maze. Then he dropped back down.  
But not before he’d sucker puched Larochen in the back with a fire burst so fierce that the smell of burned Galra armour filled the air around them.  
Shiro grinned, fierce and fleeting, at Keith’s move, the light from the brief flare lighting the maze up with hot, red light. Pidge felt her own face stretch into a strained smirk.  
Lance would have laughed at that—both at Keith’s sucker punching and the fact that Shiro had found it funny—she’d have to tell him—  
There was a snap of sound behind them, Shiro turned to see Keith holding on to Hunk’s collar with one hand, and reaching out for him with the other, a set expression on his face—  
“—Shiro I know how to get to where he is, let’s go—“  
Shiro made sure he had a good hold on Katie—who was still yelling something up at the sky about Larochen’s probable parentage—and grabbed Keith’s hand.  
Then they were in the center of the maze, Lance sprawled face down only a few paces away.  
And Blue was launching herself at them, teeth and claws sharp and threatening. There was no time to react.

***

“Oooofff!!”  
Blue cannoned into KatiePidge first—happily, Blue was an amazing creature, and since Blue had incredible reflexes, she’d mostly retracted her claws and definately not bitten KatiePidge’s head off—  
—not that she could, really, because right now she was kitten-sized—Earth kitten sized—  
—how had that happened, Blue indignantly wondered—  
—and the two of them had gone rolling over and over in the dirt as the rest of the Paladins had stopped abruptly, unsure of what to do.  
Blue sat up first—of course she did—she was a lion of Voltron, after all—and glared up at them and let out a commanding roar.  
Go to my Paladin! Help him!  
It came out more a pitiful mew.  
Somebody grabbed her from behind and scooped her up—Blue stiffened and spat—but KatiePidge’s voice sounded kind and reassuring above her ears.  
“Oh, Blue!” she said, love and concern in her voice, and Blue permitted KatiePidge to cuddle her close and to stroke her ears reassuringly. KatiePidge probably needed the reassurance more than Blue did, after all.  
But it was very nice all the same.  
Oh. Her ribs hurt. She hadn’t realized they hurt quite so much. That Larochen thing had kicked her very hard.  
She mewed a little, stiffening in discomfort. KatiePidge exclaimed, apologizing, and instantly shifted Blue so she was in a more comfortable position, being held like an infant human in her arms. Blue squirmed a little. She could not see herLance from here, and that worried her. Larochen had kicked herLance very hard. Harder than her.  
Which she did not like.  
She squirmed until she was peeking over KatiePidge’s arm.  
She did not like what she saw. She almost wanted to hide her eyes again, burrow into KatiePidge’s elbow, curl up tiny and tight and not look until it was all over.  
But that felt wrong. Like she’d be ignoring herLance when he needed her the most.  
The other Paladins were kneeling around herLance. ShiroKnight was holding herLance’s face between his palms, had moved him, was holding him up so that his head wasn’t on the ground anymore, and HunkHugs was sniffling and trying to get that—that horrible mask off of herLance’s face, and KeithMullet had leapt back up to his feet, asking no one in particular why and how in the hell that damn mask was on Lance’s face again, and KeithMullet was holding his bayard out and glaring and ready to take the head off whatever horrid thing might show up.  
KatiePidge dropped down on her knees at Lance’s side, gently released Blue.  
“Here you go, girl.” she said gently. “I’m sorry ta letcha go, but I gotta go help Keith.” She went and stood back to back with the much taller Paladin. “Keith, I think I can figure out a way for us to see that bastard coming—I’m altering our helmet displays now—“  
“Good thinking, Holt—“  
But Blue had stopped listening to them. Because she was trying to figure out a way to wake herLance up.  
Usually it wasn’t this hard.  
Granted, usually he was listening to his muuusic, or talking to his friends, or talking to himself, or laughing at one of his own silly jokes, or listening to Coran talk about meteor showers, or looking at pictures of his family, or chatting with the little blue one about things like moooovies and tv shows and games, but Blue had always been able to make herself heard before.  
And he’d sit up or turn around and pay attention to her, as if what she had to say really mattered.  
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  
He wasn’t waking up.  
He wasn’t responding.  
He hadn’t responded since they’d fallen onto that horrid planet, and the swamp had closed in over their heads, and a shadow had swum in out of the dark. Reached out, pried open the pilot’s hatch—  
—Blue’s awareness had faded, then.  
And when she’d woken up, confused and scared and surrounded by startled and screaming engineers in the Castle of Lions—  
—in the castle’s bay—  
—herLance had not been there.  
Beyris had been there, on a distant walkway, gesturing desperately and speaking with the little Trevlin prince and his mother—Blue couldn’t quite hear or understand what they were saying, she was too tired and scared for her paladin—  
And then a viewscreen had shimmered into existence in the common bay where all the lions were staying.  
HerLance—her tired, hurting, scared, brave Lance—had been on it.  
Along with something else.  
Three seconds after the transmission had started, two things had happened.  
The queen had snatched the two children to her and all but run out of the bay. Back to somewhere they could neither hear nor see what was happening on the screens.  
Blue had seen it, though. She’d guessed what was going to happen, but actually seeing it did not make it any easier.  
And Black had had to leap to stop Blue from two things: First, tearing a hole in the Castle of Lions, and second, shooting back down to the planet’s surface to find her pilot.  
Granted, Black had needed to get a little help.

***  
**—BLUE, THE TRANSMISSION IS OVER!! STOP TRYING TO BITE ME AND LISTEN TO BLACK FOR ONE! SECOND!—**  
**_STOP SITTING ON ME, RED!!_**  
**NO! NOT UNTIL YOU LISTEN TO BLACK! PLEASE, BLUE, SHE IS ONLY TRYING TO HELP!**  
**Blue!** That was Black’s voice, tight but calm. **Listen to me. If you go now, you will kill your pilot.**  
That did it. Blue stopped trying to gnaw off Red’s paws and listened.  
**Your pilot was captured by a Larochen. That monster could not drain you or take you to his den, so he took your pilot instead. If you go to yourLance now, the Larochen will find a way to bleed you both dry.**  
Blue wailed. Above her, she felt Red wince in pained sympathy. Black continued.  
**We cannot leave the castle. While our allies will recover your paladin’s body, our pilots must go to the astral plane. There they can aid yourLance in his fight against the Larochen’s theft of his quintessence. Even as we speak our paladins run towards us, so we may send them there.**  
_**I will go too!**_ Blue had cried. _**Oh, I will go too! I will help them find my paladin and bring him back!**_  
_But Blue!_ Yellow cried. _The Larochen could—he could—you should not—_  
 _We cannot go._ Green said sadly. _The Larochen is even stronger in the astral plane. He would drain our quintessences dry in a tic. So my Pilot has forbidden me to go. As did the Princess._  
The others chorused agreement.  
Blue considered this for an instant, twitching her tail rebelliously. _**Well,**_ she finally said reasonably, _**the Princess did not forbid me to go.**_  
Black huffed out a low breath. **That is because she does not know you are awake.** she said darkly.  
Blue turned towards her, imploringly. _**Oh, Black! I must go! I must! My pilot—**_ she faltered on the words. _**Tried again. My pilot—oh, Black, you do not understand—the Larochen—the Larochen—the Larochen tainted our bond.**_  
Red—who had still been sitting on her—shifted slightly.  
**…what?…**  
His voice was much quieter than it usually was.  
Blue continued. _**It, it—it blocked our bond the way humans sometimes do radio waves. It stopped me from speaking to myLance, it would not let myLance hear what I had to say…**_  
The other lions were silent. Horrified.  
_**lt lied to myLance.** _Blue whispered, her voice shaking a little. _**Oh, Black, it told him such lies and they hurt him so. MyLance was afraid that I did not care for him anymore, or worse, that I was dead and it was his fault, and he was so scared, Black—he was so scared, but so brave—**_  
 _ **—and I could not tell him so, Black—**_  
 _ **—he thought I could not hear him, because he could not hear me…**_  
 _ **—oh, Black, he thought he was alone—**_  
 _ **—he was alone—**_  
 _ **—and then, when myLance discovered the Larochen’s ruse, he—he froze his own quintessence so I would not be harmed—oh, Black, myLance is so hurt and in such danger, and I—I MUST go to him. Please, Black.**_  
Black hesitated, torn between sympathy and prudence.  
**Oh, _Blue—_** Black said, then stopped again **—I—I—I wish—**  
Above her, Blue felt Red’s weight shift again. Letting up just a tiny, tiny bit in some very, very important pressure points.  
**OH—OH—OH—NO, BLUE, NO—STOP, BLUE—YOU HEARD BLACK— YOU SHOULD NOT _GO_ , BLUE—**  
Blue had not sparred with Red for over ten thousand years to miss an opening now. Or to miss the (very badly) hidden message in his (very clumsy) words. A little leverage, a not-very hard flip into a wall, and Blue was off and running to her own bay so she could send herself to the astral plane. Green, usually so quick, so clever, was in her way. Slowly, clumsily, he moved to intercept her.  
His leap missed her by miles.  
So did Gold’s.  
Black did nothing.  
As Blue ran towards her bay, she overheard Black talking severely to Red.  
**What on earth do you call that?**  
**UMMMM….WHOOPS?**  
 _ **“WHOOOPS?!” REALLY?!!!**_  
***

When Red shuffled his feet in embarrassment, scraping them across the bay floor, various Trevelin engineers (who’d been haplessly dangling from partitions and walkways this entire time) howled louder, thinking that the end days had come.  
Such silliness. They were all perfectly fine. Gold had scooped them up and deposited them all onto a very safe walkway once Blue had woken up.  
Gold sighed in long-suffering patience and collected them all up again in her big paws. Deposited them gently at the entryway to the bays.  
Just in time to see the other paladins run in.  
_Black, she called, they are here._  
Black sniffed and turned her attention back to Red, who hunched a little closer in on himself, looking simultaneously mutinous and ashamed.  
**YOU HEARD BLUE.** He said weakly. **SHE DID NOT WANT TO LOSE HER PALADIN. AND I COULD NOT LET IT HAPPEN.**  
With an effort, Black did not let her muzzle curve into a smile. Red always looked so ridiculous whenever he felt he’d done something wrong.  
**That is not the point. she said severely. Next time, at least give me the benefit of being an intelligent leader, would you?**  
Red’s jaw dropped to the ground.  
**YOU…YOU COULD TELL I WAS FAKING?**  
Black turned round and haughtily sauntered off toward her Paladin.  
**Of course.** she said sweetly, over her shoulder **. I am not utterly stupid, you know.**  
Behind her, Black heard Red curse himself. Then heard a nervous giggle from the ventilation shafts. Oh. The little blue one. Bay-ris.  
Beyris waved a little hand at her, curious despite the gravity of the situation.  
“What’s that name mean, Red?” she asked, giggling.  
Black frowned to herself. Once this was over, she and Red were going to have….. a talk.

***  
Blue wished Black was here now. Or Gold. Or Green. Or Red. Maybe they would have known what to do when the maze cut myLance off from his friends. Maybe they would have known what was going on when the maze had gone up and the walls had darkened.  
They could have helped her when the shadow thing had come back, appearing out of the shadows. Kicked herLance back down to the ground. Snarled something about inconveniences. And then it had put the muzzle thing back on him. Again.  
She had not been able to stop him.  
She had tried biting the shadow, at least. But she’d been useless. It’d laughed at her, then disappeared. Then Blue had turned to Lance, tried scratching the mask off, tried biting the buckles, but her kitten claws and baby teeth had only scratched the eerie black surface, slid off the back straps and sparked the dull metal.  
Her Paladin had tried to get it off too.  
But he hadn’t been able to.  
But he’d tried. He really had, even with his fingers not-working from…from before. Until he’d just…stopped moving.  
And all Blue could do was just sit there, paws on his chest, peering into his face, and mew. And mew. And mew. And mew. And then, half-mad with worry, launch herself at the first thing that appeared next.  
Which had been KatiePidge.  
Oh, she had not wanted to be so small in this realm. Or this useless.  
She’d thought she could help herLance.  
But she hadn’t done much helping so far.  
Blue sniffed a bit. Curled up against Lance’s side, making sure she was out of the way of ShiroKnight and HunkHugs.  
Oh, she did not _like_ it when herLance was this _quiet_.


	7. Unexpected Aid

 

In the med bay, Aurelius felt like he was having a heart attack.  
It made no sense.  
It was as if this mask on Lance’s face was some kind of rubix cube puzzle, the kind Paladin Pidge loved to swear at so much doing her recreation hours.  
How could one ever take it off…?  
_Unless it is not meant to be removed._ a dark voice whispered in his head. _You’ve seen things like this before. Execution implements aren’t supposed to have safety guards on them._  
Aurelis shook that thought away, bent harder to his task.  
He hadn’t had time to do one of these puzzles since before med school.  
Good thing he’d been the best at them, then.  
He’d almost won that competition against—  
—oh, no—  
—no—  
—quiznak, this one was the worst kind, the one that required more than one person to undo it—  
—people who knew each other well enough to—  
—no time, no time, no time—  
_—shit—_  
A sudden, smooth pressure pushing down on the small lever he was trying to undo. Taking the second role.  
The work began to go more quickly, now, as if invisible fingers were helping him, sliding the pieces he couldn’t reach into place, manipulating unseen wheels in the mechanisms. In moments, with the unseen presence’s help, the straps had loosened, the buckles opened.  
Aurelis didn’t wait another second but grabbed the damn thing in his claws and pulled, ripping the mask off Lance, snarling, started shouting orders for ventilators and antidotes and a thousand and one other vital medical procedures. Nurses and assistants swarmed round him like ants.  
It seemed like an eternity until they were done. But then they were. The crisis passed, and the bustle died down. Then there was no one else in the recovery room. Just him and the boy whose life he had barely been able to save. Machines buzzed and beeped faintly round them. Air hissed through the mask that rested gently over Lance’s face. Aurelis had hated to use it. But he still wasn’t sure what Larochen had been trying to give him through the first one, and he wanted Lance breathing until he could figure it out for certain.  
Aurelis triple checked the readouts again, just to be sure. The boy’s vital signs were weak, but there. The wound in his chest had stopped bleeding and been thoroughly cleaned and covered. His bloody fingers and wrist were set and bandaged, the burns treated, and his breathing was shallow, but regular. All good signs.  
He’d had to be sedated once they’d gotten Larochen’s mask off—Aurelis winced at that unpleasant memory—but right now his quintessence levels were not dangerously low. Once that thing was gone, they had stabilized.  
And wherever the other paladins were, whatever they were doing, it seemed to be working.  
Lance was all right.  
For now.  
Aurelis laid one clawed hand on the boy’s head, took a deep breath, tried to let his mind process what had just happened. Tried not to think about what could have—what would have—happened. If he hadn’t been able to get the mask off. If he hadn’t been helped in time.  
Because Aurelis had only ever known one other person who could solve those sorts of puzzles that quickly.  
And she’d been dead for years.  
_Thank you,_ he thought, exhaustion and gratitude making his thoughts waver, just a little. _Thank you. Saria._  
A voice sounded, simultaneously near and far away. Calm, efficient. Kind. Just like he remembered it.  
_You’re welcome, cousin_.  
Another voice, chiming in.  
_Nice job, honey. You were brilliant! As always._  
That’d be Arris. Always supportive of his wife.  
_You’re too kind, dear._  
 _But it’s the truth, darling._  
As he finished triple checking the necessary antidote regimen for Lance, Aurelis allowed himself a brief, familiar snort of annoyance.  
_Oh, would the two of you just knock it off already_ , he groused, but without any real heat behind his words.  
Aurelis felt rather than heard Saria’s laugh echo round the room. _Such a grump_ , she teased.  
_Such a spoilsport_. Arris added.  
Some things never changed. No matter where your friends were.  
Aurelis felt a very strange grin cross his face. “You are very like your daughter, you know.” He muttered. To an uninitiated observer, it would have seemed like he was speaking to no one in particular.  
_Oh, **we know.**_ The two voices said in unison. _We know._  
_Thanks for helping my brother take care of her, old friend._ Arris added. Saria hummed in agreement. _She’s lucky to have you. They all are. All these little ones._  
Movement from the bed. Lance, stirring uneasily in his sleep, frowning worriedly. He mumbled something, the sound weak and distorted from underneath the mask.  
Aurelis felt Saria’s attention turn from him to Lance. A faint ripple of movement, dimly reflected in the glass. Sticky strands of hair that had fallen down over Lance’s swollen eye slowly drifted upwards, settled back behind his ear. The motion repeated itself a few times. And the blanket covering him suddenly seemed to be a little more firmly tucked in.  
Aurelis smiled slightly to himself as Lance sighed a little, his tense expression easing.  
“Good luck doing that with Keith.” Aurelis said wryly. “That kid has a mullet.”  
Arris sounded puzzled. _What does the other kid’s choice of weapons have to do with my wife’s fantastic bedside manner?_  
_Mullet, dear. Not mallet._  
_Oh! That makes more sense, then._  
Aurelis fought back an undignified snort. “She always was better than either of us at that.”  
_What, vocabulary?_  
Aurelis half-smirked. “That too.”  
Arris snorted at that. _Ha! Well.Take care of yourself, you old softie._  
_Don’t drive yourself until you drop._ Saria advised.  
_Which you do._ Arris supplied.  
_Which you do._ Saria assented. Aurelis rather thought someone pressed his shoulder reassuringly at that. Saria, if the light touch was anything to go by. Arris usually preferred a strong, manly shoulder punch. Or would just flick people in the head.  
Arris had been—was—  
—a strange friend sometimes.  
But a hell of a good one.  
Ah, there it was.  
Ow.  
Aurelis massaged his shoulder and glared at where he thought Arris was at the moment. He felt rather than saw Arris smirk back.  
_Seriously, old friend. Take care of yourself. Beyris rather likes your grumpy old hide. And she needs you. They all do._  
Underneath the sass, genuine affection. Saria’s voice, when it came, had it too. Sass, always. But affection too.  
_Thank you, ‘Relius. For taking care of them. All of them._  
The healer’s mouth twitched a little as the two presences faded.  
“Really, it’s more the other way around,” he said quietly.  
For the briefest moment, he allowed himself to exhale the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. Tension slid out of his shoulders.  
“Well,” he said, to himself as much as to Lance. “That was helpful. Unexpected, true, but helpful.”  
He found himself patting Lance’s head as if the young paladin had been a cat. “So, yes. You are in good hands. Just, well, rest. Which you’re doing, now. So that’s…good.”  
He sighed again.  
Gods, he was tired.  
And he’d never been as good as Saria at the whole healing bedside manner thing. Maybe Allura had some tips.  
He took another deep breath, let it out again. Felt as close as he ever did to feeling relieved.  
One more crisis, barely averted. Another patient stabilized.  
All good things.  
He brought up his tablet, started slowly tapping in an update to Allura. She’d want to see her paladin as soon as possible, he had no doubt.  
Well, then. Now was certainly a good time. Lance was stable, the ship was at peace, Rayzor in intense but friendly counsel with Riana. The refugees were safe and fed. No blaring alarms or screams, or horrid holograms broadcasting terrifying messages down the halls.  
It was as close as it ever got to peaceful in the Castle of Lions.  
Then Aurelis’ ears pricked back.  
A sound.  
Something scurrying in the vents.  
Right above his head.  
Now it was in the walls. Now it was—  
A panel near the floor shot open. Aurelis yelled.  
The sound was abruptly cut off.

***  
Well, that had been…unexpected.  
Aurelis was surprised he still had his skin on. He must have jumped a good two feet in the air, squawking “ACK!!” as Beyris’ excited hiss of _‘RELIUS!!_ ” echoed round the room.  
He clutched one clawed hand to his heart and turned a reproachful look down towards his much younger cousin, who’d just army crawled out of the ventilation shafts and was now sprawled on the floor of his immaculate med bay. Cobwebs drifted from her hair, and mice proudly rode her shoulders as if she was some kind of flag ship.  
“RELIUS!” she repeated, breathlessly, grinning upside down at him and talking between exhausted pants. “You’ll—never—guess—what I—found.”  
“Oh?” he said weakly, once his lungs were working properly again. He was still too surprised—and relieved that it wasn’t Larochen who had popped out of the wall—to read her the riot act about coming into a med room uninvited. He stalled for time, tried to rearrange his thoughts. “What is that, pray tell?”  
“I found—a friend!”  
“Oh, did you now?”  
“He is—a tree!”  
Only half-listening, Aurelis had picked up his med tablet and continued to message Allura with a shaking claw.  
“Mmmhmmm.”  
“And he is—a prince!” Aurelis stopped trying to outsmart autocorrect on his tablet and turned his head, staring blankly at his small, distant cousin.  
“Wait, what—“  
“And his name is Grevin! Say hello, Grevin!”  
Another head, poking out from the vent Beyris had just crawled through. Leafy hair. Big brown eyes peering shyly up at him. “Hewwo.” said the Crown Prince bashfully.  
Aurelis’ eye twitched. “Ah. Hello. Does your mother…know you’ve gone?”  
Grevin paused. Considered this.  
A panicked shriek wafted thinly up though the venting system. Aurelis would have bet his entire years pay—wait, he didn’t really get paid for this—oh, whatever—that it came from the Trevlin part of the ship.  
Aurelis seized at the star-sent opportunity to get small, obstinate children quickly and quietly out of his occupied med room. Via their own volition, no less. “Beyris.” Aurelis said sternly. “Go and return this young sapling to his mother at once. And convey your deepest apologies at the same time.”  
Beyris looked crestfallen. “But Grevin said he could help Lance. And that it was important and that there was no time to waste. That’s why we took the tunnels. He said it couldn’t wait until visiting ho…”  
Her big eyes shifted to the side, taking in what she could see of Lance’s condition. From where she was, she couldn’t see the worst of it, but the mask was clearly visible. As was his heavily bandaged wrist. Aurelis moved smoothly in front of Lance, blocking her gaze, and knelt down in front of her as her lower lip started to tremble.  
“It’s—it’s—it’s really b-b-bad, isn’t it?” she said, sniffling.  
Aurelis said nothing. Put a hand on her shoulder. Not because he wanted to leave her in suspense, but because he honestly didn’t know what to say. Or how to get her out of here without making things worse.  
He decided that it was okay to nod, once. Beyris sniffled harder, wiping away her tears with the heel of one grimy hand.  
“W—wuh—wuh—well—that’s why I bru—bru—brought G-g-grevin. He said—he said—that we had to make, make sure—there weren’t any—weren’t any—weren’t any pieces.”  
Rayzor repeated after her, blankly. “Pieces.”  
She nodded desperately, eyes focused on him and not Lance. Thankfully. Aurelius sighed, hit “send” on his message to Allura with one claw, then slid his tablet onto a nearby chair. Stood up and—rather artfully, he thought—took one little hand in each of his and took both Beyris and Grevin towards the door. Beyris went, albeit reluctantly, but Grevin outright tried to stay, digging his little root-like feet into the floor, reaching out the small five hands not being held by Aurelis towards Lance. Aurelis kept him moving, gently but firmly keeping them on their course.  
The youngsters didn’t need to see their friend like this.  
No one should.  
But they certainly didn’t have to.  
“—ieces.” Grevin said sadly. “—ieces.”  
“I know, I know,” Aurelis said worriedly. “I want to know about it, I do, but right now you have to let your mother know where you are, Grevin, otherwise she’ll worry herself into a fit, and Beyris, you can’t just—just escort other children though the vents—it’s not safe, and we care about you, so we need to know where you are at all—“  
He stopped. From the room behind him, a shrill noise. He recognized it instantly.  
The oyxgen readouts.  
Lance.  
Unceremoniously, he dropped the youngsters’ hands and darted back into the room, shouting orders at the nurse on duty outside. She darted forwards, grabbed Beyris and Grevin, and hustled them away from the door as Aurelis tried to figure what the quiznak was wrong with his friend.  
He’d removed Larochen’s mask, he had, he had done it himself, checked it—Rayzor had hacked most of it off in the crashed Galra ship, and then Aurelis had unceremoniously pried off the rest and dropped it on the floor when he’d been helping Lance—  
—it was off and it was dull and it was dark and it was silent, there, on the table in a sealed bag for inspection later—  
—so why wasn’t Lance breathing _now_?—

 


	8. I Cannot Stop This Sickness Taking Over

“Hunk.” Shiro said, tightly. “We need to get that thing off his face and we need it off _now_.”  
“Yep, yep, uh, yes, right on it, Shiro—“  
“Hunk.”  
Hunk swallowed, visibly tried to keep himself calm. Uh-oh, Shiro was nervous, he never was nervous—not Shiro—  
“—he isn’t _breathing_ , Hunk—“  
Hunk blew out a breath, forced himself to calm down. The problem was that the mask was steadily tightening, and, and it wasn’t so much a mask as it was a, a—  
“—Katie, you good at rubix cubes? This thing keeps adjusting to whatever I’m doin. I need another engineer here.”  
Katie looked down at him in swift understanding, and spat out a curse Hunk was very happy wasn’t aimed at him. Or his parents.  
“—itch!” Katie said, and dropped down on both knees beside Lance’s head. Hunk kept working, willing himself not to fumble, to screw something up. There wasn’t time for that. Because Lance was turning blue in front of his eyes. And not the cartoony kind of blue you saw in movies. An awful, ugly, mottled blue.  
Shit.  
Hunk wanted to throw up.  
But he didn’t.  
He couldn’t.  
Not now.

***  
Shiro shifted his grip on Lance so Katie’s small fingers could better scrabble at the straps holding this—this thing—over his pilot’s face. For a few, awful, breathless moments, there was silence.  
Then Katie swore in triumph and Shiro heard the final latches click open. Hunk snatched the awful thing off and threw it far, far away. Keith snarled and sliced at it as it flew by his side—Shiro heard a _snick snick_ sound as Keith’s bayard carved through it like butter—but all of Shiro’s focus was now on the paladin in front of him.  
“Lance, he said, very low, “Lance? Wake up, pal. Come on. Open your eyes for us. Please.”  
Lance stirred, very faintly, at the sound of his name. But he didn’t wake up. Or open his eyes. Shiro grimaced at that. On Lance’s other side, the mini-Blue mewed plaintively. Lance frowned a little at that. Shiro took this as a good sign.  
He tried again.  
“Lance, buddy. Come on, please. Open your eyes. We gotta go.”  
Still nothing. Shiro looked round at the other paladins.  
“Team, hail your Lions. Tell them to pull us out.”  
One by one, his team tried. Fuzzing static greeted their efforts. Shiro gritted his teeth and tried to figure out what else they needed to do. Once they’d killed Larochen and found Lance, the thing’s malevolent influence was supposed to be over. They would tell the Lions, and the the Lions could bring them out of the astral plane. All of them.  
That’d been the plan, at any rate.  
Shiro grimly figured this wasn’t the first time a plan had gone sideways.  
Blue’s presence was a surprise, but surely the other Lions could get her out as well. They had to get Lance out of here. They were all supposed to wake up.  
And Larochen was dead. Wasn’t he?  
He said Lance’s name again, silently praying for a reply.  
Nothing.  
Dammit.  
“Hunk, work on fixing the comms. Pidge, Keith, you make sure that if that Larochen bastard’s still breathing he doesn’t blindside us.”  
Hunk, still kneeling by Lance’s head, fiddled with the handheld device he’d brought. His usually friendly face was grim. Pidge stood up again, went back to back with Keith, still standing guard over their small group. Shiro shifted his hold on Lance so he wasn’t holding him quite as hard with the Galra arm.  
Blue mewed plaintively up at him, eyes large and pleading.  
Shiro swallowed hard. Tried to think.  
“Lance,” he tried. “Come on. Larochen’s gone. He’s gone, I promise. We took care of him. We’re getting you out. But you gotta be awake first. Come on.”  
Lance was still. Then he shifted a little, whimpering. Shiro shifted his grip, trying to better support Lance’s neck. Something red and wet slid down Shiro’s Galra hand. Blood.  
Shiro froze. Had he—  
Pidge saw what had happened, cursed, fiddled with a side compartment in her armor. Yanked out a tangled cord with small earbuds dangling at the end, pushed them towards Shiro.  
“—busted his eardrums.” she said brusquely. “I saw it during the call. At least one of them popped. Try one of these. In his other ear. The speaker’s right on the—yeah, right there, on the side.”  
Shiro adjusted his grip, gently slid one of the small pieces into Lance’s unbloodied ear. Held the mic close by his own mouth, hoping this would work. He turned his head aside to check on the team’s stats.  
“Hunk, how are the comms?”  
“—almost got em, Shiro—just tuning out the static bursts—“  
“—Keith? Pidge?—“  
“No sign of the jerkface, Shiro, I think I got him pretty good—“  
“—nothin on the displays—“  
Shiro nodded to himself, then spoke into the mic. He reminded himself to keep his voice low. The last thing Lance needed was another shock.  
Oh, God, no pun intended.  
He’d have to tell Lance about his inadvertant space dad pun later. Lance would laugh until he howled at the horrible irony. At least, Shiro hoped he would.  
“Lance. Lance, come on.” A response, finally. Lance’s good eye flickered open. His voice was weak, almost non-existent.  
“…ro?”  
“Yeah, Lance, yeah. I’m here. We all are. We’re getting you out of here.”  
Lance raised an arm, tried pulling himself up. Couldn’t. Not with his hands like that. Shiro told him to take it easy. Lance tried looking around.  
“—lue?”  
“—she’s right here too, Lance, she’s fine, we all are. You know how you got here?” Shiro swallowed, continued. “From where Larochen…?”  
A weak shake of the head. Lance blinked sluggishly, looked around, eyes dull and slow with pain. “Dunno. Just kinda…woke up…here.” A pause. He’d seen the kitten. His voice brightened a shade or two. “Hey, Blue.” A delighted mew from the little lion, an enthusiastic jump snuggle and ensuing face-licking. Shiro grinned, gently pulling her off. “Hey, hey, whoa, there, girl. We gotta get him back in one piece.”  
Blue’s tail lashed happily from side to side. Lance made as if to stroke her ears and winced as he tried to move his broken fingers. Blue’s happy purr changed to an eerily deep growl of rage. Lance was still mostly out of it, but tried to wink at her. It was a little too slow and a little too feeble to be a true wink, though. Lance’s eye stayed shut after it.  
“..’m…okay. ‘m….fine.”  
Blue sat back and gave him a “Paladin, please.” look, and began to angrily pace a perimeter around Lance’s head on tiny padding paws.  
“Our team seriously needs to look up the words ‘okay’ and ‘fine’.” Pidge deadpanned from above them.  
“Agreed.” Shiro muttered. Lance forced his eye open again, half-glared up at him. “I…heard that…you…hypo….crite.” He rolled his neck painfully around. “And…don’t even get me….started…on…Red Shirt over…here.”  
Keith snorted. “Bring it on, Elsa.”  
Lance snickered at that, then coughed. The cough turned into a wheeze that shook and rattled his whole frame. Shiro held him until the worst had passed. Exchanged a worried look with Hunk over the hanging, bloody head.  
“How long until we can get back?” Shiro asked, quietly. Hunk checked the handheld scanner, eyes squinting unhappily.  
“Couplea minutes.” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Looks like there’s something that, ah, doesn’t want us leavin. But I’m gonna break through the comms barrier, never fear, an our Lions’ll be gettin us out before you know it.”  
Lance’s eyes had gone cloudy again. He shifted in Shiro’s grasp as if in sudden pain. Sighed.  
“ ‘m zorry guys.” he said weakly.  
Keith blinked in befuddlement. Pidge and Hunk exchanged suddenly frightened looks. Shiro stiffened. Blue’s hackles rose.  
“Sorry for what?” Shiro said evenly.  
“Fer getting you into thiz mez. Fer not taking thiz zeriouzly.” Lance slurred. Shiro looked at him closely. For once, Lance didn’t seem to be joking. His attention was drifting, fading. “ ‘M zorry.” he said again. “I shoulda tried harder.”  
Hunk’s lower lip quivered. Pidge blinked hard. Shiro tried to think of what to say.  
“Bullshit!”  
Lance blinked up at Keith, who was quivering in furious indignation and outright glaring down at him.  
“Bull- _shit_.” he repeated again, emphasizing the words so Lance could see what he was saying. “Merciful God in Heaven, you are an idiot, Lance McClain.Why the hell would you say any of those things?”  
Lance looked confused again. Keith started to wave his bayard around and only just managed to stop himself from beheading Pidge.  
“Stupid, lazy? You idiot! How’d you come up with that shit?”  
Lance blinked. “Uh…well…you just agreed with it…right now…”  
Keith swore and probably would have ripped out his hair if he hadn’t been wearing his helmet.  
“AARRRGGHH, DAMMIT, MCLAIN—YOU ARE THE DUMBEST—“  
“Keith, not helping.” Shiro interrupted, calm but firm. Keith looked at him desperately, his voice rising in volume and intensity. He did that when he was stressed. He didn’t mean to, but he did. But it also was freaking Lance out. Shiro could feel Lance’s tired muscles tensing, the other kid shrinking away from Keith and curling back into himself.  
Shiro sighed to himself.  
Sometimes, being the oldest in a tough situation _sucked_.  
“ _Shiro_ , tell him! Tell him he’s an _idiot_ for thinking he’s _stupid_!”  
Shiro fought back the urge to either facepalm himself or break out into half-hysterical laughter. Keith was desperate, Hunk and Pidge worried and confused, and Lance was hurt. Which meant he absolutely could not break out into highly-stressed, hysterical laugher at this. He could not.  
Later, they’d see the irony and laugh until they couldn’t breathe. Hell, Katie would probably put Keith’s line on a t-shirt and give to him for Christmas.  
But not now.  
Now he had to walk them through it.  
Talk now. Laugh-cry about this with Allura later.  
“Quiet, Keith.” he said again, and his brother subsided, muttering darkly under his breath. Shiro turned his attention to Lance, who was looking even more pale than he had previously. The sight made something twist in Shiro’s chest.  
“Lance,” he said, keeping his tone from breaking with an effort, “you’re not any of those things.” Shiro tried putting a smile in his voice. “You’re a paladin of Voltron.”  
Lance wearily shook his head. It looked like it took an awful lot of effort.  
“..ou say that, but…just cuz you’re…nice.”  
“Lance!” Shiro was genuinely shocked.  
Keith broke in again. “Who, this guy?” He jerked a thumb over at Shiro. “Uh, good, yes. Kind, yes. Nice? Nuh-uh. When we were in Garrison he told me my mullet makes me look like a girl.” Keith paused for emphasis. Maybe trying to get a laugh. He didn’t get one. Keith bit his lip, hard. Exchanged worried looks with Pidge and Hunk.  
Lance didn’t seem to hear him. “…’m…not a good pilot, Shiro…”  
Pidge looked incredulous. Hunk was crying. Blue had disappeared, crept off somewhere during this exchange. Shiro wasn’t sure where. But it was probably better that she didn’t hear this, anyway. He could barely counsel four teenagers through this. He had no idea what would happen if he added a mini, possibly de-aged mystical lion into the mix.  
“Lance!” Pidge said, eyes wide.  
“Lance, buddy—“ Hunk pleaded.  
Lance frowned at them, real pain that had nothing to do with Larochen flaring up in his eyes.  
“ ‘M not a pilot.” he snarled again, more to himself than to them. “ Jus’ a…jus’ a cargo one.” His smile became bitter. Shiro did not like that look twisting Lance’s face. It seemed alien. Wrong.  
“ ‘M not even a real good one a’ that.”  
Pidge planted her hands on her hips and stomped her foot, hard. “Bullshit.” she sniffed. “You were awesome at Garrison.”  
“At crashin the simulators.” Lance sneered.  
Hunk raised a hand, as if he was in class. Lance looked at him sidelong. “You haven’t gotten any of us killed!” the Yellow Paladin said brightly.  
Lance snorted. “Yet.”  
Keith glared down at him. “I don’t care what your parents said when they were bein stupid,” he said brusquely, “but you’re not a screw-up. That’s Larochen talking.” he snarled. “Not you, Lance. So stoppit. Stoppit right now.”  
Lance didn’t respond with words, but Shiro could feel the kid tensing up even worse, could see the pulse leaping harder in the bruised neck.  
This wasn’t helping.  
He cleared his throat meaningfully, looking at the other three paladins, each in turn. He put one gloved hand over the mouthpiece and mouthed the next few words silently up at them.  
“Guys, stop.” He jerked his head at the walls around them. “Maze.” he said. Keith’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. Pidge glared around her, and Hunk looked sick.  
They finally understood what Shiro had just realized. The maze was screwing with Lance’s mind. Continuing Larochen’s work.  
Because quintessence drains didn’t have to be physically happening to kill you.  
Shiro released his hold on the mic. Looked back down at Lance.  
Whose eyes…just weren’t open anymore.  
Shiro swallowed hard, felt his heart stop. He started to say something. Then Lance’s eyes slid half-way open. The momentary surge of relief Shiro felt vanished at the next words he heard Lance slur.  
Because that wasn’t Lance’s voice.  
“…jus’ stop pretendin.”  
The voice was tired, dead. Lance’s eyes were unfocused, staring off into the distance. He wasn’t speaking to anyone else when he spoke next. But they all heard it.  
“Stupid kid…thinkin they…wanted you. No one…did…an’…no one…does.”  
Then Lance’s eyes closed. And stayed that way.

  
***  
Shiro felt his heart grow cold. A shiver of ice ran down his spine.  
“Lance? LANCE!” Shiro dropped all attempts at gentleness and subtlety. He glared up at Hunk. “Hunk, I don’t care if you have to _punch a hole in space time_ , but link to the Lions and get us out of here, now.”  
He snapped his head around, voice flat. “Katie, get Blue. I don’t know where she went but we are not staying here one devrent longer than we have to. Keith, get Larochen’s attention. We need to end him before we leave.”  
Hunk doubled his mechanical manipulations with religious fervor. Pidge’s eyes flicked round as she called “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty—“ in a cracking little voice. Keith’s eyes were flat and hard. “Got it.” he growled, deactivating his bayard. Then he walked a few paces away from the group, cupped his hands around his mouth, and hollered,  
“OH, GOD, WE CAN’T GET OUT!! ALL THE PALADINS OF VOLTRON IN ONE PLACE!! WE’RE TRAPPED WITHOUT ANY HOPE OF ESCAPE, AAAAAHHH THE COMMS AREN’T WORKING, OH, GOD, OH, GAAAWWWWD, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!!”  
He dropped the act, stalked back over to the group, pulled out his bayard again. “Dibs.” he said, very low.  
“Nuh-uh.” Hunk said.  
“As if.” Pidge sniffed.  
Blue—who Pidge had found grimly trying to climb up the back of Shiro’s Galra arm to better get to Lance—and was now safely back in Katie’s arms—mewed, once.  
Shiro ignored them all.  
Let Larochen come. If the rest of the group didn’t get to him first, Shiro was going to pound that thing into dust with his Galra arm and then scatter the ashes into the stars.  
But he couldn’t focus on that now. Black and Allura had warned him that Larochen had tainted Lance’s link with Blue, but Shiro hadn’t fully understood until now just how deep the infection went. The maze was proof of that. It wasn’t just an elaborate trick, or false images snuck into Lance’s mind. They weren’t simple lies that could be laughed at out of hand.  
It was so much more complicated than that.  
Too complicated to entirely fix right now.  
But Shiro had to start. He had to at least try.  
Shiro didn’t know much about this kind of thing, but he knew, he knew that it was very important that Lance hear him now, before Larochen’s lies pulled him any further away.  
“Lance.” Shiro said firmly. He held Lance’s bloody face between his hands, now, one human, one Galra, the prosthetic gleaming faintly purple with tightly-controlled energy so he wouldn’t accidentally burn Lance’s face off. Don’t burn Lance’s face off, don’t burn Lance’s face off—stopfreakingoutShirowakehimup—“Lance, look at me.” Without meaning too, his voice hardened slightly, stress and worry bleeding through, making his voice harsher than he’d meant it to be. “Lance McClain, wake up.”  
Lance wasn’t opening his eyes. Was actually trying to get away. Oh, crap. That had sounded like an order. Lance McClain didn’t do so well with orders. Or angry people.  
Shiro forced himself to relax, think about what would bring Lance back to them. Forced the fear and tenseness out of his voice. That wouldn’t help Lance come back. When next he spoke, he made sure his voice was calm. “Come on, Lance, buddy. Open your eyes.”  
Slowly, very, slowly, Lance did. Still trying to get away, though. But his eyes were open. So, good. Baby steps.  
Shiro took a deep breath. He didn’t want to say this next part. More than anything else in the world, he wanted to brush away the painful things he’d seen in his friend’s past. That he’d heard Keith hollering about on the other side of the wall. Part of him wanted to never face those things head on. Ignore em forever. Never, ever think about what had happened, never accept that someone, anyone, could have done that over and over and over, to Lance.  
But denying it wouldn’t fix what had happened. Nothing could. In fact, denying it’d just make things worse.  
But they could start fixing what was happening now.  
“Lance.” he said, slowly and clearly, trying to get his attention. “I know.”  
Lance stopped trying to get away and looked up at him, eyes wide and scared and tear-filled. His voice sounded just a little bit more like his own, now.  
“…yeah?….”  
“What Larochen…” Shiro huffed out a breath, restarted again. “What it showed us. Those memories are real. Aren’t they.”  
Lance’s eyes slid away. He nodded, once.  
With an effort, Shiro kept his voice steady. “Okay. So. It’s true. You were right about that. They didn’t want you. Not those people, not then. It sucks, it sucks so bad, and I’m so sorry, but it’s true. You’re right about that.”  
Lance’s expression started to crumble, eyes flicking off to the side for a moment. Then Shiro saw Lance stop, wearily gather in the pieces, try to hold his cocky, confident front up for an instant more. Despite his injuries, he blew out a shaky breath, tried to shrug it off. The motion was so weak and small that Shiro wanted to simultaneously cry and blast this side of astral plane into futzing orbit out of sheer pain at seeing his friend hurt this much.  
And, worse, think that he couldn’t tell anyone about it.  
“I, I know.” Lance said tiredly. “‘I…I al…ways knew. R—r—really. ‘m…annoying….bu’ not…stupid.” He shifted, huffed again. “…not…not that stupid, anyhow.”  
Shiro didn’t let go of Lance's face. He made very, very sure he spoke the next words very, very carefully.  
“It’s true that they didn’t want you.” he repeated. “But it’s not true that we don’t.”  
Lance blinked at him.  
Shiro hoped he believed him. Hoped he saw the truth reflected in his face. Hunk’s, Keith’s, Pidge’s. Blue’s. All of them.  
Still nothing. Still just a blank, uncomprehending stare.  
Oh, God. What if Lance had suffered a concussion, or worse? What if he was bleeding from the brain? What if—  
“—’s a lotta double negatives there, Cap.” Lance said, bewilderment evident in his voice. “Whas…”  
Shiro felt almost sick with sudden relief, but forced himself to focus on the task at hand.  
“Lance,” he said, still very, very gently, “we want you. Larochen lied about us. We want you. That’s the truth.”  
Lance still didn’t look convinced. “…’re you sure…” he slurred. “…’m real…Larochen…messed me up good, Shiro. I don’t know if I can…” he moved one arm. The broken fingers dangled limply.  
“…yeah.”  
Keith huffed out an annoyed breath. “Lance, you’re talkin to a guy with a metal arm who pilots the head of Voltron, for crying out loud. You’ll be fine.”  
Shiro had been going to say pretty much the same thing, but resisted. He didn’t want to harangue Lance. He really know much about this—non-physical—side of warfare, but belaboring the point to a confused and hurting comrade probably wasn’t a good way to try and fix the problem. Maybe if they got back to the Castle, and he could talk with Allura—  
A sudden movement out in the darkness.  
A voice. _That_ one. Lance, tensing against his arms, trying not to, curling up defensively around his injuries all the same.  
_**I’m glad you’re all in one place. It makes things easier for me.**_  
Shiro smiled hard out into the darkness.  
“You have no idea.” he said coldly.


	9. Reckoning

“Keith.”  
Keith shot Shiro a puzzled, then an almost angry look as Shiro motioned to him with a quick jerk of the head.  
“What? Oh, no. No way, man. I called dibs—besides, you’re holding—“  
“Switch.” his older brother said, in that tone that brooked no argument. “This isn’t my first fight here. I’m more used to it than you. And besides.” He looked round at the group, eyes sparkling just a little.  
“I’m the head. I don’t need to call dibs.”  
Keith scowled but did as he was asked, swapping places with Shiro and—once again—cradling Lance in his arms. As Shiro stalked out into the darkness, activating his Galra arm and marching towards the shadow that laughed, Keith glared down at his friend, trying—and failing—to cover his worry with pique.  
“Maybe you’ll remember our bonding moment this time.” he groused. Usually, this would have earned him a pithy, if irritable, retort. If Lance had been feeling like himself. But he wasn’t. Lance just scowled and looked away, his eyes going all thousand-mile-stare again.  
Keith didn’t like that. He bounced an elbow, mercilessly jogging Lance’s head so that he was looking at him again. Lance’s glassy gaze turned into a glare.  
“ _What_.” he said tiredly.  
Keith didn’t like that either. Usually Lance was much more pissy, even when he was hurt. Or he was being annoying. And making bad pun jokes.  
Not this tired. Or defeated.  
Lance was not going to give up now. Not on Keith’s watch.  
“I said,” Keith growled, “you’ll be fine. Lookit Shiro.” he nodded out at the fight. Lance craned his head. Keith swore and shifted their position, bringing Lance up enough so he could see the completely epic beatdown fight Shiro was giving Larochen.  
Who had stopped laughing rather suddenly.  
Keith fought back the urge to grin like a well-fed cat at the shrieks and howls of terror emanating from the previously intimidating shadow-jerk, and focused back on Lance. Who’d stopped watching the fight. His head was nodding, bruised eyes sliding shut.  
“HEY!” Keith yelled. He floundered for an insulting nickname. That wouldn’t hurt Lance’s feelings.  
This was hard.  
How did Lance do it? Struck by a sudden impulse, Keith tried one.  
“ELSA!!” he yelled. He shook Lance as much as he dared. “Lookit that!” he said desperately, as if trying to keep a grumpy toddler entertained. “Lookit Shiro curb-stomping that sonofa—“  
Lance cracked one eye open, glared at him. “He’s _Shiro_. I’m…me.”  
Keith stared, uncomprehending. “Yeah. And?”  
With an effort, Lance raised his arms. Stiffly, painfully. As if he was a t-rex with acute tendonitis in both elbows. He waved his broken fingers and wrists under Keith’s nose.  
“This,” he said bitterly, “is because I’m a craptastic pilot who managed to crash a beautiful mythical lion into a swamp. Blue deserves a pilot who can actually fly. Or fight.”  
Keith looked blank. He had no idea how to stop Lance from rambling. Not that he ever did. But this time he thought it was especially important to stop Lance from going down that particular rabbit trail of thought. He thought about what Shiro would do in this situation. Forced himself to remember that patience yields focus.  
Lance shifted irritably in his arms, jabbing him in the chest with one pointy elbow. “ ‘Sides, don’t you have a big red lion to go pilot, or something? A universe to defend? A Galra outpost to blow up? I’m not an infant, I can _lie down on the ground without help_ , ya know. Go do somethin useful, set Larochen on fire, or somethin, don’t just sit here bein an idiot—“  
“ _You’re_ being an idiot! Shut up, Lance!” Keith said. He paused for a second, screwed up his face in frustration. “ARRRGGH DAMMIT!” he yelled. Lance glared up him, the old familiar rapport seeming to bring back some semblance of normality. Lance’s old snark resurfaced, just for a moment.  
“Hunk, Pidge, this guy is terrible. I give him negative bazillion stars on Yelp for leadership material. Tell him he should go help Shiro. Set things on fire. Do something useful.” Lance jabbed him again with an elbow. Keith swore.  
“I can frigging lie down on my own, Nightcrawler.” Lance said petulantly. “ _So help Shiro kick spider-dude’s shadowy ass_!”  
“Iiiiiiiii don’t think Shiro needs any help.” Hunk said reverently, still fiddling with his radio device, but mostly focused on the flashes of dark shadow and purple light flicking back and forth in front of them.  
“No. No he does not.” Pidge agreed, adjusting her glasses with one hand. Held in her other arm, Blue mewed with appreciation.  
Lance saw her and his face fell again. “Lookit that.” he said despairingly. “Not only did I crash her onto a dyin swamp planet, but I get snatched and grabbed and get my frickin quintessence drained by Dracula over there. Now Blue’s, like thirteen sizes too small.”  
He looked down at his hands and swallowed, hard. He looked lost, suddenly, and very small. “ ’n I can’t even pilot you outta here. ‘m sorry, Blue.”  
Blue just tilted her head and looked at him, eyes wide with an emotion Keith could not quite place. Lance looked back at her, eyes wider.  
Keith broke the silence.  
“Dude. Just because you’re broken doesn’t mean you’re beaten.”  
Lance blinked, looked round at him. “Wha?”  
Keith rolled his eyes. “You said that to me! During rehab after we’d gotten our butts kicked by the Druids. That one time.”  
Lance squinted one eye. “That…that doesn’t narrow it down, Keith….”  
Impatiently, Keith waved the details aside. “Whatever! Point is, you’re not beaten.”  
Lance still looked skeptical. “I don’t remember sayin that, and I don’t know what it means.” he said tiredly.  
Keith huffed out a breath and looked round. Then he pointed at Lance’s arm, at the wrist still dangling at the wrong angle.  
“This.” he said brusquely. “See this?”  
Hunk audibly fought back his gag reflex and Pidge let out an exasperated snort through her nose. “Keith, your bedside manner sucks.”  
“Yeah, it does. Just listen. See this? It did this. To you. But did it beat you?”  
Lance blinked. “Are you kidding, Kogane? It kicked my ass. You all saw, you had, like, front row seats.”  
Keith shook his head so hard that his mullet flicked side to side in his helmet. “No, man, you’re not listening. Did it beat you? Did it win?”  Lance looked tentatively at him, drew out the next word very slowly, interrogatively.  
“Nooooo….?”  
Keith grinned again. “Right!”  
Lance finished his sentence. “….beeeeeeecause you guys came and got me. And Shiro’s barbecuing it to a crisp.”  
A flash of purple fireworks off to the side. They all turned their heads and watched it for a moment, even Lance letting out a brief impressed “Whooooaaa….” as the flashes faded from their vision. Then they turned back to the conversation.  
Keith would have facepalmed himself if his arms weren’t full of Lance.  
“Dude! Did it GET THE LIONS?!”  
Lance blinked. “I….guess…not?”  
“NO!” Keith bellowed. “Of course it didn’t! You wouldn’t give it our location!”  
“Oh.” Lance blinked. “Yeah. Right.”  
“So it didn’t win!”  
Lance smiled then. It was small, but it was there.  
“Heheh. Yeah. I guess not.”

***  
A shout from the blackness.  
They turned to look.  
A flying figure.  
Black and white armor, rushing down towards them out of the dark.  
Shiro crashed onto his back on the ground in front of them, almost crushing Pidge. He groaned, limbs twitching, then jerked back up to his feet, breathing hard, facing out in front of them.  
His helmet was missing, his armor smoking. Hunk ran to him, helped him up.  
Shiro coughed, gasped for air. “Guys.” he said, voice rasping. “The Lions can’t get us until Larochen’s dead. His life force is jamming our signal.”  
Pidge went pale. Hunk’s fingers went still. Keith went silent.  
Shiro cleared his throat, activated his shield. “Remember our fallback plan.”  
Lance looked round at all of them. “Plan?” he said, voice small. “Guys, what plan?”  
Keith set him down. Activated his shield and his bayard. Made a defensive circle around Lance. Hunk took the back, Katie the other side. Shiro stayed in front, glowing Galra arm poised back, ready to strike.  
Lance looked up at his friends. Dammit, he wanted to help. He didn’t want them to get—to be—  
A deeper shadow looming up out of the darkness, tendrils of darkness spreading from its four hands, growing, growing, growing, blocking out the stars and the light until the whole freaking horizon was nothing but a black hole.  
Did it have wings now?  
Holy crap it had wings.  
Oh, God.  
Larochen’s voice, smug, triumphant.  
You almost had me, Champion.  
One side of the horizon shifted, a long wing shrugging a one-sided shrug.  
But almost is not enough.  
Lance swallowed, looked round at his friends. They kept their eyes trained on the oncoming threat, clearly determined to die rather than let it get him again.  
He was so sorry.  
He didn’t want them to die too.  
But he was glad they were there, all the same.  
Encouraged by their presence, Lance looked out at the thing hunting them. Not that it was anything very nice to look at, particularly. He just didn’t want to die hiding.  
Then he looked closer.  
And laughed.  
Really laughed.  
“H—hey.” he said, choking slightly. “L—L—Look—behind you.”  
The blackness—whose claws were raised to strike at Shiro’s face—like the poor guy needed any more scars—paused.  
Really?  
Lance giggled hysterically.  
“Yyeah. Really. Right there.”  
The voice was unimpressed. Almost peeved.  
That's the oldest trick in the book.  
“Yeah, well.” Lance shrugged one shoulder, wished he hadn’t. Then grinned back up into the gleaming pits that were the monster’s eyes. “There’s a reason for that.”  
A roar.  
Not Larochen’s.  
The gleaming pits widened almost comically, the slitted pupils almost disappearing.  
Because it was, indeed, a very loud roar.  
Louder than all the waterfalls and cascades and rivers in the universe, it boomed across the astral plane in a primal bellow of passion and anger and—yes, even now—laughter. Loud and long and true.  
“The reason,” Lance said meditatively into the sudden, utter silence, “is that it friggin _works_.” He winked up at the glowing pits, raised one hand to do finger guns. Realized the fingers on that hand were broken. Shrugged, moved the arm in little jerky motions instead.  
“Pew, pew, pew.” he purred.  
Larochen squeaked. And turned round.  
One enormous gleaming eye, glowing brighter than the sun, stared back.  
A voice—so loud it almost broke Lance’s still intact eardrum and made the other Paladins yell and clap their hands to their helmets—roared across the silence. Lance felt his old grin split his face.  
He’d missed that voice.  
_**MY!!! LANCE!!!!**_  
Blue’s jaws opened.  
Larochen screamed.  
_**Crunch.**_  
Lance kept grinning, the way he had all that time ago. Back when he’d first decided to walk into a giant space cat’s head.  
“Nice, Blue.”  
Blue’s purr threatened to crack the astral plane apart.  
_**Mypilot. How I’ve missed you.**_

***


	10. Visiting Hours

“So, you guys knew Blue was goin to go all Pacific Rim size like, the whole time?” Lance asked. He still looked like a mummy and his voice was still weak, but after much pleading and big puppy eye looks, Beyris had finally talked Aurelis into letting the whole group visit—all together—  
—and eat dinner together for the first time in a week.  
Lance had been out of the cryopod for three days, but Aurelis was still keeping a close watch on him. He wasn’t paranoid, exactly, but every so often would just randomly scan Lance’s head with a small handheld box, check the results, breathe out a sigh of relief, and then pretend nothing had happened.  
He wasn’t doing it now, though. Maybe because there wasn’t room to squeeze out from between Rayzor and Mr Holt to get over to Lance’s bedside. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t an awful lot of room period.  
But they managed anyway.  
“Not exactly,” Shiro admitted, his Galra arm lying on the chair back behind Allura’s, his human hand holding hers, “but once I saw she’d made it through—despite Larochen’s hold on you—I figured she might be able to pull it off. If all else failed.” He grinned, the expression making him look younger. “Larochen wasn’t quite as good at manipulating the bond as he thought. Even Black was impressed.”  
Lance cocked his head to one side, as if listening to someone not in the room, then laughed a little. “Heh. Blue says Black was straight-out flabbergasted she’ d pulled off a size transformation that quickly.”  
Shiro laughed too. “Yeah. That’s a better word for it.”  
Beyris beamed. She was so glad everyone was smiling again. She hadn’t wanted to miss this. She and Grevin had come up through the vents together just as they’d all started, and Aurelis—he was so nice, Beyris thought to herself, she should really make him cookies or draw him a picture later—let them stay too. Besides, he’d muttered, he couldn’t very well trip through the mess of people to get them out.  
Beyris and Grevin sat happily together on the floor, crosslegged, sipping nutrition packs, and looking up adoringly at the figure on the bed.  
Lance grinned and waved a bandaged hand at them. “Hey guys.” he said, voice a whisper. “How’s it goin?”  
Beyris gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up. Grevin gave him a shy three-thumbs up.  
“Don’t worry.” Beyris told her new friend, for what seemed the thousandth time. “We’ll find out about the pieces later. I know where Uncle Aurelis sleeps. We can sneak over there after this and just quick visit and tell him about it before bed.”  
Oh, dear.  
She really had to do something nice for Aurelis. She knew he worried so much.  
Beyris furrowed her forehead as she sipped her nutrition packet.  
Oh! Maybe she could try cleaning his medical tools one day. All those really sharp ones. Before he got home.  
He’d be so surprised.


End file.
